


Balancing Act

by jojotier



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: (biorobotics or otherwise), Action/Adventure, Alternate Universe - Steampunk, Gaslamp Fantasy, M/M, Meet-Cute, Non-Chronological, One Shot Collection, Prequel, Robotics, Slice of Life, Soul Bond, Whimsy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-18
Updated: 2020-10-31
Packaged: 2021-02-28 18:40:01
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 11
Words: 31,162
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23201842
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jojotier/pseuds/jojotier
Summary: Jon, record keeper of the Magnus Institute and unwilling psychometric, finds himself on the doorstep of Blackwood Mechanics, following up on a grant request for clockwork birds. He didn't expect Martin to have quite so much soul.Meanwhile, Tim and Sasha meet for the first time when a Mr. Fairchild chases Tim into her arms while riding the shoulders of a rampaging giant robot as a business partnership strategy. Turns out surviving ironically named automatons makes for fast friendship.(Chapters are self-contained, so feel free to read in any order you'd like or skip to your leisure!)
Relationships: Danny Stoker & Tim Stoker, Martin Blackwood/Jonathan Sims, Sasha James & Not Sasha James, Sasha James/Tim Stoker
Comments: 44
Kudos: 172





	1. Shifted Perception --[Jon, m1]

**Author's Note:**

> hey there! so I started doing these little drabbles for a gaslamp fantasy au I've been cooking up while I devote more time to planning the main fic and writing and hopefully finishing the Joe Spooky fic, and decided to upload them here as well!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Set during Month 1, spring.

> _a sign, slowly and meticulously handpainted with care. the strokes are gentle but purposeful, and overhead, a man sings a wordless song under his breath, something old and inherited wordless, as wordless songs often are, and voice rendering melody sweet_

Blinking away the harsh sunlight pouring over the top of the weather-beaten roof of a building somewhat less rundown than it had been previously, Jon slowly let out a long-suffering breath. He pulled his hand away from the sign. BLACKWOOD MECHANICS beamed back at him in cheerful brass lettering over black-painted wood; in new and pristine condition, albeit just the slightest bit dusty from its owner not coming out for a few days.

Jon hoped this wasn’t going to be another one of _those_ errands. The kind that ended up taking twice as long because everything he even tried to touch was just imbued with emotion so strongly that it poured visions into him with reckless abandon- it made things all kinds of inconvenient. 

If Elias had sent him on yet another one of those, he was… well, he wasn’t going to do much of anything, but he _would_ complain loudly about it to whoever might listen. And to whoever might not listen, and to no one at all, which may have sounded a mite soulless at first glance. Considering the fact that Jon was not in possession of a soul, that tracked.

He turned the doorknob into the shop

> _its lock, which had been left rusted and broken for so long, was finally oiled. the hands that gingerly removed the device from its wooden prison fiddled with its mechanisms with just as light a touch, moving things back into place only a centimeter at a time. for long periods between the fingers leaving and coming back, there was the frantic turning of pages, the soft murmur of confusion, then frustration, then triumph when the puzzle was solved. the doorknob was reinstalled and worked flawlessly_

oh for god’s sake. It was one of those errands.

Jon was going to have some strong words for Elias.

Not immediately, since he didn’t much like talking to his boss, but they were going to be _strong words_ nonetheless. One would think that a halfway ruined mechanics shop on the outskirts of town wouldn’t be quite so full of strong perceptions- at least, not anymore. Whoever the new owner was, they’d gone and imbued the place with some very strong feelings. Jon decided that was as good a reason as any to immediately dislike whoever this potential ‘partner’ was merely on principle. The types that imbued emotion into things tended to either be very annoying at best and actively unable to exercise the self-control to regulate themselves at worst. 

The bell on the door jingled jauntily, a slightly shrill beacon through the blanket of quiet that nestled over the showroom. It wasn’t exactly in much of a state to be called a ‘showroom’ yet, of course- some of the shelving on the left side of the room were still broken down where the sole renovator hadn’t begun to repair it, and when Jon stepped on the hardwood floor, a few boards still protested with the weight of someone treading on them. It couldn't really be called a showroom- what shelves lined the walls that were sanded down and new held nothing in the way of wares or even prototypes, standing empty and gathering a fine layer of plaster dust from the wall. For a mechanics shop, it was startlingly devoid of anything that would mark it as such. It merely looked like a half-finished shop front, looking just as likely to hold neon snowglobes as it was to hold those clockwork birds he'd been promised.

The windows at the front were boarded up and without glass, and yet the room was still somehow lit in a homey light, from a few patchy holes in the ceiling that spilled the summer sunlight in. The streams of light were flecked with glittering dust, and Jon made sure to avoid those- who knew what kinds of memories could get stirred up with dust.

As he approached a lone door into the back behind the unsanded countertop, some minute movements could be heard- although, they weren’t coming as low as he would have assumed. It sounded as though someone was gently sawing at the ceiling itself- but Jon also wasn’t hearing the minute sounds of moving on a ladder…

Not wanting to risk another second here, he knocked

> _the door was new, and its owner even newer. there’s the muffled sound of gentle murmuring- “yes, like that, ah! think I’ve got it now!”- and strong, steady hands pulling it firmly into place._

once, so that he doesn’t have to do that again, and Jon’s somewhat shortened vision is cut through with a gentle yelp, emanating from just _above_ the doorway beyond the door. 

“Er, um-!” The mystery voice fumbled for a moment, and it didn’t take Jon long to place it as the same voice murmuring to his door, and the voice murmuring in such confusion over the simple job of repairing a doorknob, and the voice that sang prettily while doing the simple act of painting a worn-out sign. Just the type to force sentimentality into _everything._ “S-sorry? But we’re- we’re, ah, currently not open to taking commissions! Please come back when we’re, officially-”

“I’m not here for a commission,” Jon said through the door, not really wanting to touch another doorknob and whatever inane trauma it might carry. Doorknob trauma was very much not on Jon’s list of fun things to deal with. “I’m from the Magnus Institute? I'm here to ask a few questions about your application.” 

“Oh!” The voice said, tone a touch much more vibrant. If he’d known Jon before this, he wouldn’t have been so damn chipper. Jon didn’t hear any footsteps, but he did hear the metal sound of some tool or another being set down on a table. There were still no footsteps as the voice drew closer to the door, which was… eerie. A small shudder ran down Jon’s spine before he squashed down any errant thoughts about ghosts or the like. Ghosts didn’t apply for patents on clockwork birds. “I must not have heard you come in- apologies,” 

There was some more rustling, and then the door swung open. But there was no one behind it. 

“Come in!” urged a voice from above the door. “I just need to find…” For a moment, Jon stared at the empty doorframe, wholly unwilling to step through. There wasn't a single soul on the other side of the door- just an overly cheerful voice, like an echo of something lonely and bright. His magic had never done this before- superimposed visions in his day to day life- and it made his skin crawl, thinking of what might have been on the other side. Jon took a little step back, cursing himself when his shoe cracked over a piece of scrap metal. Who left their shop in such a dismal shape anyway? He guessed that was what he got, making a housecall to a Blackwood- Then, an upside-down face sheepishly peeked from the top edge of the doorframe, red curls swaying in an invisible breeze as he said, “I uh, just need to find the rope t-to ah, get back down to earth?” As it turned out, there was someone in the room, and that someone was the applicant Martin Blackwood. Martin was just floating.

Jon relaxed, shaking off the urge to ask how long the stranger had been bound here. Would have been rather rude, and contrary to popular belief, Jon _did_ make the occasional attempt to be... lovely, when he was working. “Right.” He stepped through the door, and one look at the chubby form floating at the top of the room confirmed it. One of the Soulful. Elias hadn’t mentioned that their possible new client had a good deal more soul than the average person- but then again, the purpose of this errand was expressly to gather some information about the sudden takeover of Blackwood Mechanics. It wasn’t every day that someone claiming to be the son of one of the most mocked machinists in London’s history popped out of the woodwork looking to patent something… ‘biomechanical’. 

Out of the corner of his eye, he spotted the rope that the mechanic was so frantically looking for, levitating somewhat agitatedly along the ceiling as his eyes searched the pulleys in either of the back corners of the room and too high out of its reach to see the thing. Sighing, Jon figured out that the fastest way to get this over with was by taking the rope in his hand and

seeing nothing. Absolutely nothing was happening.

Which was _especially odd,_ since he could feel, just under the surface of his hand, how the woven thing was alight. It was actually a little more daunting than if he _had_ gotten a vision; rather too much like holding a snake with a venom one has no idea what to do with. Jon could still see the vision, if he wanted to, possibly. But the fact that the vision wasn't springing on him like an ill-advised trap was disconcerting.

Martin was, for his part, at least possessing enough decency to float a little closer, floating a few inches above Jon’s head instead of the three feet up towards the ceiling. Holding out the rope, Jon was about to say something. Martin was about to say something back, a ‘thank you’ on the tip of his tongue when their fingers brushed.

Then, all at once, vertigo. As though Jon were the one floating up while the mechanic was settling on earth; Jon falling in reverse, moving up, while the mechanic touched down on the ground.

Jon had no time to recover between the sudden feeling and the sudden heavy weight of the mechanic falling from the bloody ceiling directly on top of him. He also wasn’t able to recover in time to maintain balance, sending both men sprawling to the floor in a heap of limbs and dual noises of surprise and pain. Jon’s head smacked back against the edge of a counter and there was still _no vision_ which was somehow far more terrifying than unearthing whatever skeletons this stranger might have been keeping under the counter.

For a few seconds, Jon just laid there, not entirely processing what just happened. Martin's weight on top of him might not have been unwelcome, had the circumstances been different, and the hand that was clutching Jon's forearm in a belated attempt to catch his balance was rough in the delicate way of developing callouses. His thoughts shorted out for a few moments, bleeding into a large question mark that took up the forefront of his brain as he wondered what the fuck just happened.

Then Martin scrambled back, face going beet red, and babbled a long string of apologies, inquiries to his health, and ‘oh, Christ, you don’t have a concussion do you? oh god oh no the liability- your _head-_ ’ 

“... You’re not floating anymore,” Jon said, coming back to himself a bit and immediately kicking himself for that. Astute observation. That shut Martin up for a few moments, though, as he looked down at himself, blinking.

“Huh.” said Martin, baffled, “I’m... not floating.”

“You are not,” Jon confirmed. There was a small pit, forming in the meat of his stomach. There wasn't much that could knock someone with a ludicrous amount of soul out of the sky, bar iron shoes or...

“Er,” Martin said, chewing on his lip, “how’s- how's your head? Does it- does it hurt overly much, or-”

“Like hell, but it could be worse. I could be seeing things,” Jon said. Then, his eyebrows furrowed. “… no vision.”

"Oh!" Martin's eyes widened comically, bright blue shining with concern. "Your- your vision? You can't see? But-"

"No. No, I can see." Jon slowly sat up himself, the back of his head throbbing. 

“Oh,” Martin said. “… you get those a lot? Like, er, images of other things- or. Huh.” Martin said for the second time that conversation. “No visions.”

“No visions,” Jon repeated, freaking out just the slightest bit.

“…” Finally, Martin slowly got up on shaky legs, as if not quite used to the act. He may not have been. Jon was afraid to ask how long it'd been since Martin could walk without iron stuck to his feet. “… I think we should have some tea. Would you like some tea? I’ll make some tea, and, and we can. Introduce ourselves… properly. Over the tea.”

“…Tea would be good. Thank you.” There was only one thing that could cause something like this, and Jon was _not_ keen on discussing it on top of the funding this Martin Blackwood was requesting. 

Their souls had balanced. In such a dramatic fashion too- the way that souls balanced in fairytales and bad romcoms. They'd canceled each other out.

He was going to have some _extremely_ strong words for Elias.


	2. Twining Souls --[Martin, m1]

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Martin's first instance of magic, and a business meeting. (And the development of a very ill-advised crush)
> 
> Set during month 1, a continuation of the previous.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hey!! sorry, it appears as though I have brainrot that causes me to default to angst like every other hour, but rest assured, this isn't the last time these two see each other... wouldn't be much of a romcom if they didn't meet again hkuvhfbj
> 
> Either way, I hope you enjoy!!

Walking without the shoes was strange. Martin wasn’t entirely sure if it was a good strange either, which was probably ironic in some way since it wasn’t like iron shoes were particularly comfortable? There was only so much that could be done to pad the inside of footwear made primarily out of metal that didn’t weigh it down even more and Martin usually had to take the precaution of bandaging his feet first because of how heavy his own shoes were, so he even had extra steps to it. But somehow, Martin felt bare, walking in simple leather boots and plain old socks along the creaking, dingy wood floor. 

Bare, vulnerable, and suddenly a little self-conscious, because really, the state of these floors were. Were less than ideal? Kind of like they could collapse any second under him. He hoped nothing of the sort happened- not only would it be hard to deal with, without the floating, but it’d be  _ embarrassing.  _

To save himself from that embarrassment showing too heavily on his face, Martin fiddled with the electric kettle, hands nudging the little brass dials this way and that to find the perfect temperature for the tea to boil. It was almost novel, getting to do so while both himself and the kettle were stationary on the ground and not floating some meters up, the tray the kettle was set on fluttering with wing appendages that, admittedly, looked a little goofy. Martin loved his goofy wings motif, though he could feel rather than see the eyes of his guest roll at the sight of the drooping paper decorations over the thin plastic paddles- it was cute, and it was functional, and also it was something he could focus on instead of his guest and the current situation.

Peeking over his shoulder, Martin tried to see if there was any disorientation or swaying, but there was none. The employee, or proctor, or maybe case manager or whoever had dropped by without so much as a warning sat in one of the few seats in his little living-room-kitchen that wasn’t currently taken up by bits of scrap metal or blueprints or books, off brown and a little too plush to sit in without sinking. Not much time to tidy up, much less unpack, before he’d arrived...

From the sour look Martin was seeing on the stranger’s handsome face, he was going to guess this wasn’t the type to think favorably on the implications of what had just happened, even with a possible concussion. His eyes were blessedly still sharp, roaming over the small back room just off from what Martin guessed might count as his workshop with some measure of contempt. 

The tense silence was only punctuated by the whistle of the kettle and the shuffling of Martin with the boxes of tea, trying to decide between green tea or a breakfast blend (in the middle of the afternoon? well, what was one more eccentricity on top of everything else-) before Martin asked, “Er, I don’t have earl grey- sorry- but there’s black tea if you’d like the caffeine, and ah-”

“That’s fine. Thank you.” The stranger said curtly.

“Right,” Martin said lamely, dropping the loose-leaf ball in both teacups. Picking up the screaming kettle, he kept talking, “Ah, and sorry about the state of the place- I haven’t had much time to, to unpack? Between trying to fix the place up and the blueprints, and um. I must have missed the call, that said you were coming today?”

“There was no call,” The stranger said, deadpan. Barely one minute of real conversation and Martin already felt as though he were boring the man. “We’re to drop in unexpectedly, as per our esteemed head.” 

“Well,” Martin said, smiling a tad sardonically, “that’s a mite… that is to say, while it’s a pleasant surprise-”

“Don’t try to sugarcoat anything on my behalf,” The man said dryly, folding his brown hands primly in his lap, “I’m aware of the perceived rudeness of the proceedings. Pointing that out won’t lose you money.”

“When you put it like that,” Martin said, pouring the boiling water and watching the loose leaves unfurl in thin petals of leaves, “it sounds as though there’s a few things that will cause me to, to lose it?”

“I haven’t decided,” The man said, which was not in the least bit comforting. Then he added, “... Although, if I do, you’ll be the first to know. Unlike my employer, I prefer to negotiate as though we’re both adults,” 

“I appreciate it,” Martin may or may not have been currently using his magic to make the tea taste better. It wasn’t that he was bad at it without the magic- it was just that, well, pulling the leaves out a little further than natural and twining the leaves through the minute gaps in the water made for even nicer tea even faster, and good tea could salvage any situation. 

He handed off the cup and saucer to the man, asking, “Cream or sugar?” to which he received a little shake of the head. The stranger looked down into the silver-rimmed cup and huffed out a little displeased breath. “Loose-leaf without an infuser. Really.”

“Hm?” Martin blinked. Then, acting as though he’d forgotten, he snapped, “Oh! Hold on.” He tapped two fingers against the rim of his guest’s cup and the little particles of loose leaves pulled back together, twining around each other in coiling braids of spent plant matter until a miniature ball stuck to the bottom of the cup. 

The man’s eyebrows raised in a rather nice look of mild surprise. “Suppose that saves some money.” As well as providing an easy demonstration of Martin’s brand of magic. “So how does someone whose magic deals in tea-making end up a mechanic?”

Martin snorted softly, settling into the empty space of a floral patterned loveseat with a dangerously teetering stack of anatomy books acting as his seatmate. He didn’t even have to put his seatbelt on. “It’s not tea-making magic. It’s twining- just, taking things and braiding them together? I guess ‘weaving’ is also a good way to describe it, but… feels a little too,” Martin gestured a bit with his free hand, not sure how exactly to describe it, “imprecise?” 

The man hummed around a sip, and Martin didn’t miss the way his eyes flashed at the taste. Martin smiled. If nothing else, he at least had confidence that he made damn good tea. 

“Twining, then. It sounds as though it’s a power with more use with the natural,” The man pressed. 

Martin kept smiling but internally wondered what was with the man’s intense tone. Was he always like this or was it just that hard to believe that Martin was here? He knew he didn’t really look like any inventor, but... “Admittedly, it can be, in some ways. Plants and clothes have always been easier to twine, since they already have the uh- the threads? All there and ready to go? But then I guess I-I just got to thinking somewhere along the line, well, why just plants? Why just clothing? It can be pretty delicate magic, so for a long time I just used it to mend, but then I figured out I could twine wires too and- and it just went off from there.”

“I see- and I would suppose that you already had access to a workshop at an early age, what with being a Blackwood.” Martin didn’t wince when he was told this, used to it as he was, but he did internally recoil at the slightly contemptuous tone when the stranger said his last name. It was better than open mockery or hatred, like so many others, though, so- so it was better than the usual, he supposed.

“Not quite? My, ah, my father left pretty early on,” Martin said, rubbing the back of his neck. “The only reason I ended up with this shop is- is, uh, well, I was in the will? Somehow? And I was pretty fresh out of uni, so,” which was a lie. He’d never set foot in a college- never had an apprenticeship either. University, at least, seemed more plausible.

“Oh.” said the Magnus man, “Well. My… condolences.”

“It’s fine, really! Not like you were the one to make him leave or anything,” Martin said before mentally kicking himself. That was stupid. That was a stupid thing to say. Christ. “Um. No need to apologize, mister…” Better to divert attention from that embarrassing little slip by asking for a name. It’d be terrible if Martin had to keep referring to this guy as “the Magnus Man”. 

“Ah. I suppose introductions are in order,” the man held out a hand over the cluttered coffee table, balancing the teacup and plate on his knee, “My name is Jonathan Sims, head record keeper at the Magnus Institute.”

Martin took the hand, relieved to see that Jonathan hadn’t been spooked off too much by earlier. Or else, maybe, he was pretending that earlier never happened. Wasn’t that a nice thought, Martin thought, trying to ignore the enormous jolt that the contact caused to roll down his spine. “My name is, uh, Martin- Martin Blackwood? But you knew that.” He paused, though, because the warm hand in his gripped tighter for just a moment, as if grounding itself, before pulling away like touching a hot iron. “Pleasure to meet you, Mister Sims,”

Jonathan winced, hands quickly going to steady his cup before it toppled from the force of his movement back. “Just Jon is fine.” His hand twitched a little, and Martin frowned a bit. Was it really that unpleasant for Jon? If this was going to happen every time they so much as brushed...

“Right,” Martin said, chewing on his lip for a moment, trying to figure out how to broach the subject of ‘we just met but we’re actually soulmates in a way that’s basically impossible to find’ before inelegantly blurting out, “Sorry. For earlier, I mean. I um. I didn’t think.”

“Well that’s no good in your profession,” Jon muttered, and Martin’s frown deepened. The man sighed, eyes sliding off to the side. “In any case, it wasn’t your fault. I didn’t exactly advertise being soulless.”

“True, and uh- well- that is to say, about the-” 

Jon interrupted, “You don’t need to take… whatever happened… as meaning anything.” Martin had no right to feel disappointed; even if Jon was pretty in a severe way and appreciated good tea, they were still trying to set up grant funding. This was supposed to be a strictly professional meeting. “Just because two people balance doesn’t mean that they’re  _ compatible,  _ in the facets of life that aren’t related to souls or magic.”

“Yes, quite right,” Martin agreed, even though he wished Jon wouldn’t sound so very sensible about the whole thing. Plenty of people in the world had perfectly happy lives without finding their exact match soul-wise, and even if this was a one-in-several-millions chance meeting, it didn’t mean anything. Still, he’d kind of hoped that… well, that this meant they could at least become friends? That’d make working together easier. If Jon even ended up working with him after this meeting.

“Now,” Jon continued, “about your plan for these birds of yours?”

“Ah, yes! Hold on…” Martin continued with the meeting, searching through the blueprints and trying to shake off the tingling feeling in his hand.

(Later on, after some more tea and the end of the meeting, Martin learned that it was likely that he was getting the grant money, though it was unlikely he would ever see Jon again. Martin tried not to sound too heartbroken over the fact.

Meeting a balance, and watching them walk out the door, likely never to be seen again… Martin floated gently towards his ceiling, the spell the proximity to Jon had woven severing the moment they were separated. Pulling his knees up to curl into a ball in the air, he reprimanded himself for mentioning the soulmate thing at all. After all, this wasn't some fairytale romance- what else was he expecting the outcome to be?)


	3. Mirror, Mirror --[Tim, m1]

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tim Stoker goes to a meeting with Simon Fairchild, head of Fairchild and Company, in Elias's place. He shows off the fact that he's the only soulless man on earth who can fly the same way a soulful person can*.
> 
> *certain limitations and restrictions may apply, certain criteria must be met, and next chapter, we learn why this was Not Worth It
> 
> Set during month 1.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm done with one of my zinefics!!! so I was allowed to write this as a treat for myself. I don't know whether you wanted to see Tim and Simon interacting, but here we are! If you have any criticisms of Simon's characterization, that'd be really helpful, since I'm actually only on episode 99 and haven't met him properly yet haha... 
> 
> In any case, I hope you enjoy!

Admittedly, the place was a lot less posh than what Tim’d been expecting. The little sitting room he was in was a little more spacious than any average living room, of course, but it was a lot smaller than what a man like Simon Fairchild could feasibly afford. 

It reminded him a little bit of his Granny’s, actually, back when she’d still been kicking- all doilies on the cushions and pictures on the wall of the little pink skeleton of a man with various children and grandchildren. With the exception of a photograph hung over a mantlepiece with a lot of slightly dusty porcelain knick-knacks, where he held onto the hand of a ten-year-old girl with fiery red hair and a prosthetic arm, all of the children were pretty obviously soulful, decked out with ropes tied around the waist and metal shoes. 

The only big differences between Fairchild’s living room and a normal one was that it decked out in eggshell blue paint and brass gadgets that nervously levitated along each wall, holding various items and carrying out various little tasks. Filtering the air of plaster here, checking pulleys and supplying rope there- one had even taken Tim’s hat when he’d come in with a blunt little hook! 

The man himself gestured for Tim to sit down, settling into his couch with a little pleased smile on his withered old face as he looked Tim up and down, hands resting one on top of the other over his cane. “Now then, what do I owe the pleasure of this meeting to, hm?”

Tim copied the posture as he sat, but not so much that it was obvious he was mirroring; folded his hands on his crossed knees, left over right despite being right-handed, and leaned back in the armchair, relaxed. “I’m actually standing in for Elias- he’s,” Here, Tim’s voice dropped in as dry and boring an imitation as he could manage, “a _very_ busy man, Mister Fairchild- a very _boring man,_ too, I’m afraid,”

Fairchild’s eyes sparked with the faintest hint of mirth as he chuckled airily. Everything about the man seemed airy, granted, but this was breathier than earlier moments in the time he’d introduced Tim into his front room. “I suppose I should have figured as much- though just Simon is fine,” He snorted softly, “unless you were given the order to keep things strictly ‘professional’, I mean,”

“I was, but then again, it’s not as though Elias is here now is he?” Tim cracked a little smile, “I’ll call you whatever you’d like, Simon,”

“Is that so?” Simon asked, smile widening a bit as his tone got flirty and _okay_ Tim wasn’t expecting to need to flirt his way through here, but, hey, if duty called, “Quite the people-pleaser we have on our hands, hm?”

“In more ways than one,” Tim winked, to which Simon openly laughed. 

“Well now, I like you! I suppose it’s good that you’re who came, then,” the man said with a smile full of gleaming teeth, “since it seems he’s still serious about partnering with Fairchild and Company?”

“Right-o,” Tim nodded, smiling back, “He had a lot of praise for the work you do here! Can’t imagine why he didn’t want to find time to meet up, though- I swear, he’s stuck to that desk of his,”

“Say it isn’t so! Elias Bouchard?” Simon gasped melodramatically, raising a hand to touch his heart gently, “Head of the stuffiest institute this side of the Thames, stuck to his own desk? It’s like I don’t even know the man anymore…” 

“You say that as if there was a time he _wasn’t_ stuck to it!” Tim said in mock horror, one hand touching his chin as his eyes popped wide open. He wasn’t lying about that, at least. He had never actually seen Elias leave his desk chair, much less his office? In fact, very few people at the Institute had seen him outside of it- almost like the man was rooted to the spot! 

Simon nodded sagely, “You’d be surprised how different a man can be in a good old fashioned opium den- really rejuvenates the soul, you know!”

“Well if that’s enough to get him out of that seat, I’ll have to try it out,” Tim’s eyes gleamed as he leaned forward a bit, “I’m shocked this wasn’t enough to tempt him out- a business deal with juggernaut in soulful living, and a delight to boot! Maybe that paperwork of his has rotted his brain,”

“Perhaps!” Simon said, and his smile grew. The gleam in his eyes had grown, cloudy blue sparkling with mischief, “Or perhaps… it’s simply that he knows that I don’t do business on the ground.” 

“Oh?” Tim asked, tilting his head, “Do you have somewhere in mind around here?” He’d seen the outside of this place- for how narrow it was, in many respects, it could still be classified as a mansion from sheer height alone. The tall building of the Fairchild residence snaked into the sky, sometimes leaning this way and that with outcroppings of rooms and balconies weighing the largely glass and blue painted building to any one side before the floors above balanced it back. It was more of a jenga tower of floors haphazardly stacked on top of each other than a building- it was a miracle the thing wasn’t toppling. 

“Oh my dear one, I mean,” Simon slowly began to float up from his seat, carefree. It was a much more controlled glide than any other soulful- usually, those with too much soul floated as if they were tugged upright by strings and needed to work against them. The more powerful the soul, the more those strings tugged upward. Simon, for lack of a better explanation, had total control of his strings. “I prefer to be off the ground as quickly as possible,”

“That may be a bit hard for me…” Tim hummed, tilting his head to the other side. “I don’t have a soul,”

“Oh,” Simon looked exceedingly disappointed. “That’s a shame… I had hoped Elias would have known me better than that,”

“Oh, no, don’t worry!” Tim laughed, emulating that carefree tone, “I don’t have a soul, but I can still _fly,_ obviously. Give me a second…” He paused dramatically, putting on an air as if he knew exactly what he was doing. He only _kind_ of did. Normally, he obviously wouldn’t be able to levitate because that was a side effect of having too much soul, and he obviously had none. But for Simon Fairchild, the flying wasn’t a side effect of having too much soul. It was the result. 

Simon seemed amused by Tim’s declaration, keeling over sideways to lounge in the air a good few feet above his couch as he watched. Of course, there wasn’t anything visible to see- after all, when one looked into a mirror, did they see the tendrils where their reflection entered the glass? All Tim did was see Fairchild float himself up and let that impress itself on him.

Tim floated too, mirroring Simon’s exact position with a cheeky little grin. Despite how calm and collected he projected out, on the inside, he was kind of going insane- because, wow, he really was levitating wasn’t he? Just right up, in the air, floating there and everything! This was _so_ cool. 

He didn’t want to thank Elias for anything, what with Elias being a total bastard and all, but maybe he would put a good word in for this. Just this once, Elias could know how absolutely _Stokered_ he was for this little assignment, despite it being so different from the usual courier duties. This was a pun that Tim was absolutely going to say, out loud, to Elias’s face, and that was a threat.

Simon shot up, sitting in the air with a look that could only be described as _enchanted._ “Well, I’ll be,” Simon breathed, hands clasping together as his eyes grew impossibly wider. Tim tried to smoothly bring himself to mirror that new position, only stumbling a little over his now very much airborne limbs. This was his first time not being on the ground, okay? No one could blame him for not being totally perfect with it; especially since no one had told him how it felt for his feet to expect there to be something steady underneath and how terrifying the lack was, how easy it was to fall a few centimeters before he caught himself. 

Sternly telling his body to stay upright dammit, Tim said, “You’ll be…? Come on, Simon, I need to know what’s next for us- we still have room to take this to the next level.”

Simon beamed at him, utterly delighted. “Well, I’ll be! I certainly wasn’t expecting this- and you’re sure you’re soulless-?”

“Oh, without a doubt,” Tim playfully placed the back of his hand on his head, falling backward in a swoon and trying very hard to think about the ensuing back roll through the air as something similar to whenever he was having an intense session in the river and not five seconds from falling, no matter what his ringing ears were telling him, “There’s nothing in me! It’s but a gaping hole, a void swallowing up my heart and all else!”

“An actor to boot,” Simon huffed out a fond breath, eyes crinkling at the corners, “you’re full of surprises, I’ll give you that!”

“I hope there’s more I can offer,” Tim winked again, a signature move when flirting. 

“Oh, undoubtedly,” Simon’s grin turned downright wicked. “Now then, how’s about we take this meeting elsewhere- like, say, Ringster Robotics?”

That caught Tim off guard, for a moment. “Ringster Robotics? I thought they broke with Fairchild a bit ago?”

“Oh, they did,” Simon nodded, grin seeming to grow. Tim didn’t trust it a bit, but he also had a big deal with one of the most elusive millionaires in London on the line and a promise to be fired if this fell through, so… “But I do believe I’d like to pay my niece a visit afterward! She works inside of the Orsinov plant. It’s been so very long, you know...” Here, he sighed, but with a sincerity that caught Tim slightly off guard. “And I really am proud of her, you know.” 

Tim had been told that Simon Fairchild was a wholly capricious man that took almost nothing seriously. But then again, he really shouldn’t have been surprised that this assessment was wrong- Elias wasn’t exactly one to care about other people being, well, human. And well, Tim couldn’t help but be maybe a bit endeared. “I get that- my little brother actually works in the Orsinov plant too; pretty prestigious stuff going on there, you know,”

“Oh! Congratulations, Mister Stoker!” Simon cheered up immediately, the mirth bleeding back to his face, “I’m sure he’s a wonderful fit,”

“He is!! He’s the smart one in the family,” He couldn’t help grinning himself, “I really am proud of him… he’s really been going above and beyond, you know?”

“I can see that!” Simon propelled himself over to Tim languidly, patting his shoulder affectionately. “I’d love to meet him as well- perhaps we could introduce them to each other! My niece and your brother… I’m sure they could be the best of friends.” 

“Maybe!” Tim didn’t want to commit though, just because he’d feel a little awkward about trying to recommend friends to Danny? He _was_ a grown man, after all, and even if Tim loved to embarrass him occasionally (which was really easy to do, what with them kinda being roommates), he also didn’t want to like, treat him like a child. That’d just be rude.

Simon turned sharply, weaving his tiny body around Tim’s as he made his way towards the absurdly tall door that they had walked through a full seven minutes ago. “Excellent! Now then- shall we head on out? We may not be able to fit in all I have planned if we dawdle now!”

Tim, foolishly thinking that that really would be all and that they would definitely have a normal meeting, naively said, “Of course. Lead the way!”

(It was not a normal meeting Jesus Christ it **was not a normal meeting)**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next time: Tim and Sasha meet, and also a giant rampaging robot is involved.


	4. Off the Wall --[Tim, m1]

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The chapter where Tim gets chased by the giant rampaging robot 'Hope' that Simon Fairchild is riding the shoulders of like he's riding a mechanical bull, but it's okay because Danny's there to help save the day. Tim meets Sasha for the first time, and Simon gets to have a nice little chat with his niece.
> 
> Set during month 1, a continuation of the previous.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> howdy! I'm sorry for the wait on this one, but then again I was able to really flesh this one out- this was originally a response to a tumblr prompt asking to see how Tim and Sasha met, so I expanded upon the original draft with a lot of new interactions and better dialogue all around! I hope you enjoy :D

Tim needed a moment to figure out where exactly everything was going wrong.

It definitely wasn’t setting off any alarm bells when both had managed to float their way to Ringster Robotics. (The alarm bells started when Fairchild, instead of going for the enormous front doors and the blinking fluorescent signs around it proudly trumpeting the newest projects of the Orsinov plant in curly neon red, flew up to the glass roof of the main workshop, forcing Tim to follow.)

There were some nerves being frayed, when Fairchild simply removed one of the glass panels and levitated through, squeezing his bones through without issue. Tim… guessed this might have been fine? Since it seemed weird that a single glass square in a larger window would be removable, and if Fairchild knew about it, it could have been something made specifically for him. The size definitely was, and Tim had a bit of trouble sliding through.

(The shop floor below was devoid of most life, made up of hulking titanium and iron machines meant to cut and bend and weld enormous sheets of metals; made up of sanders, of things to make the metal smoother and punch out the kinks; made up of cranes and pulleys and furnaces and all sorts of things Tim couldn’t place at all. The Orsinov Plant was as enormous as it was full of things that confused Tim to no end. There was a reason why Danny was the one who had ended up staying with engineering.)

“They’re out for lunch, I suspect,” Fairchild had said breezily, which did absolutely nothing to calm Tim’s nerves as they floated towards the concrete floor. Tim had just uttered a polite little ‘oh?’ in response, trying to figure out what the best way out of this situation was without running for the hills or an unemployment office. “Nikola gives an extended lunch break every other week so that she can host a little talent show shindig, see? Optional to participate, mandatory to spectate. Couldn’t tell you why,” Tim also didn’t really ask, and he suspected he would not be doing so.

Tim figured they could still get away with everything without any trouble even as Fairchild led him to a pair of five-meter tall behemoths slumped over in the corner, two identical automatons sitting so close that their foreheads brushed together. Simon apparently knew about these, spinning in the air with a flourish as he presented them. “Beauties, aren’t they? Just look at that craftsmanship! Steel and titanium, married with such a pretty copper alloy to boot! I do wonder what the other bit in that alloy is…” 

Taking a step back and craning his neck to get a better look, Tim whistled lowly. Simon sure as hell wasn’t lying- both were built in the approximate shape of a human man if that human man were built like a brick shithouse and with the entirety of their middles being comprised of a waterfall of black wires. At first glance, they seemed to be rubber- but on closer inspection, there was a metallic sheen to them and a sharpness that reminded him of obsidian. Long arms rested against either side, ridged and segmented aluminum that reminded him somewhat of insects’ legs, albeit much thicker and with cartoonish gloved hands on the end.

“I’ll say!” Tim said with some wonder, floating up to study the stern face of one of the machines. Whoever had worked on these were damn good. “Any idea which set these are?”

“Why, these would be the never-before-seen Breekon and Hope models!” 

Tim’s expression defaulted to a customer service smile as, in the back of his head, with the quickness of a glass shattering violently against the ground he thought,  _ Shit. _

_ This is Danny’s project. _

Time to get this old man out and this meeting finished. 

Smile somewhat strained, Tim politely said, “Wow! That’s interesting- whoever made these has really done an amazing job,” and Tim wasn’t just saying that because there was still a surge of pride, seeing what the team Danny had been hired on was doing, “but you know, that talent show of Orsinov has really caught my ear-”

“Ah, ah, hold on just a tick,” Fairchild said warmly, slowly circling around the head of the robot on the right, looking interestedly in the corded, flexible metal pipes that made up the mechanical creature’s neck. Every single alarm was blaring for Tim as he floated closer, holding his hands somewhat close to himself so that he could catch onto the machine as he accidentally knocked into it a bit. “Just need to see…”

“Well now, Mister Fairchild-”

“Simon, dear boy, Simon,” 

“Simon, sorry- Simon, didn’t you say your niece works at this plant?” Tim tried to appeal to that before anything else because he  _ really  _ didn’t want this whole thing to fall through just because this geezer was getting a little capricious. Especially not with one of Danny’s robots! “Well, my brother should also be there, so it would be the easiest thing in the world-”

“Just a moment~” Simon singsonged, knobbly little fingers wiggling closer and closer to a suspicious black box on the back of the robot’s neck.

Oh, this was bad. Very bad. Quickly sliding in and wrapping an arm around Simon’s shoulder, Tim twirled the man away, laughing with false cheer, “Moment’s up! We should probably look for the cantine ‘round these parts,”

“Oh, but,” Simon started to say, trying to float out of Tim’s hold. He was succeeding because Tim still wasn’t good at controlling exactly how fast his descent could have been. Dammit. Tim was about to interrupt with another hasty excuse when the door to their lower left began to creak open. Both paused midair, Tim trying to hold his breath as

Oh, goddammit. It was  _ Danny.  _ (Everything went wrong the moment that Danny walked into the room.)

Danny was just getting off from whatever extended break was going on, early it seemed. He had always been more on point with that sort of thing- walking in fifteen minutes early at the latest to get to work and make a good impression, stubborn as a mule. It was the kind of work ethic Tim used to have back when he was still trying to get them both financially stable and trying to make the most of his old serious job; Danny just did it because he was a super genius and genuinely loved what he did. For once, Tim wished his little brother wasn’t such a hard worker. Then he wouldn’t be padding over to Breekon and Hope, wiping a leftover smear of a strawberry off the corner of his mouth with an oil-stained handkerchief, none the wiser to the hell that Tim had unwittingly brought.

_ Don’t look up,  _ Tim silently begged,  _ Please don’t look up.  _ Danny looked up because life was a bitch like that.

His younger brother’s eyes widened for just a moment in shock as he took in the sight of his soulless brother gently floating beside Simon Fairchild of all people before he schooled his expression into something more calmly curious. He waved up at them. “Hey, Tim! And who’s your friend?” 

Simon zipped out of Tim’s hold and levitated a few inches off the ground to enthusiastically shake Danny’s hand as he introduced himself. Then he asked about Breekon and Hope. Tim gestured, trying to mouth to Danny ‘Don’t let him know you’re on the project-’ but it was too late.

“Well, I was just gonna tinker a bit with Hope here,” Danny said fluidly, smiling. “There’s this nasty malfunction where Hope just goes absolutely  _ berserk  _ if he’s on and Breekon isn’t…” Simon Fairchild’s eyes sparkled, and Tim knew all hope was lost.

Danny’s sheer force of charisma and Tim needing to not lose his job led them to the current situation, with Tim flying at high speeds through an enormous shop floor that seemed to go on forever for some  _ ungodly  _ reason and Danny riding alongside on what Tim affectionately called his modified Vespa, branded with copper and gear motifs despite the rounded-off edges and low seat and pedals mirroring a motorcycle more closely.

Also the giant robot. There was a giant robot chasing them.

He almost missed Danny’s voice over the whipping of the wind through his hair and also the maniacal laughing of a little skeleton of an old man hooting and hollering after him. ‘Course, it wasn’t like Tim  _ liked  _ missing whatever his little brother had to say but also, the whole ‘running for your life business’ made it hard to parse out individual words. Also the aforementioned laughter. The aforementioned laughter drowned out a lot. How big were Fairchild’s lungs?

But he did end up hearing Danny even while recklessly coasting on borrowed flight. Danny yelled, eyes wide with heavy concern and just a bit of hidden excitement, shoved down to make way for more of the kind of emotion this situation called for. “I swear to God if this thing destroys anything else-!”

“You’ll be fine!” Tim called back, voice going breathless by the wind he was whipping through. Jesus, there really was a lot to this levitating business- soulfuls made it look so  _ easy,  _ and it wasn’t like Tim had the time to get pointers either, when the guy who’s soul magic he was borrowing was barreling behind him, gleefully riding the shoulders of a smoking behemoth of an automaton.

Danny was riding on ahead on his bike and Tim was caught in the balancing act of outlasting the titan creature’s massive aluminum arms- swinging every which way with fists at the ready and joints creaking with screaming brass gears and steam- and not straying too far from Simon Fairchild himself, riding the thing’s shoulders with the vigor of a cowboy on the last mechanical bull ride of his life. Because if Tim strayed too far, the connection with Fairchild’s soul would be lost- and if it was lost, he could kiss this sweet flight goodbye as he was trampled to death on the cold factory floor.

Tim was very much  _ not keen _ on dying. Dying would, Tim felt, suck major balls. And not in a good way.

It was amid this absolute chaos that a woman exited a corner office, floating a few centimeters off the floor, clipboard in one hand, iron shoes in the other, and eye decal on her suit lapel designating her as a researcher for the Magnus Institute. 

Seeing that from above, Tim couldn’t help the relief flowing through him- even if he didn’t know her name yet, he recognized the pin! And if she was from the Institute too, that meant he had a shot at some extra help containing  _ this  _ fuck all terrible situation.

“Hey! Can you-” Tim’s voice tapered off into a small yelp as he rounded the gentle curve of the wall, the burning breath of the furnace at the core of goliath ghosting against the back of his neck. The researcher’s head snapped up, copper eyes seeming all the brighter with how wide they got as she was suddenly confronted with Tim, legs pumping faster as he tried to see if running in the air could propel him forward without making him look stupid, pursued by the resident goliath in production.

“What the-!” She started to say before Danny, panicked by the prospect of actual people entering the currently de-populated workshop early, stomped on the gas pedal of his little one-man bike and grabbed her by the arm, riding off a little ways ahead with the researcher pulled behind. Tim struggled to catch up without looking to see if the ground was approaching too fast.

The poor woman was remarkably calm as she maneuvered herself so that she was hovering just behind Danny, shoes left to fall to the wayside while her clipboard remained stubbornly pinned under one arm. She called over the whipping wind and mechanical cracking of gargantuan limbs not quite fitted the most seamlessly together, “Anyone want to tell me what all this is?!” She paused, free arm gripping around Danny’s waist tighter as she looked back. “Is- is that  _ Simon Fairchild?”  _

All in all, an understandable reaction. If Tim hadn’t accidentally caused this entire thing by reluctantly going along with Fairchild’s flirtatious offers of a ‘fun little game’ to ‘fire the heart and  _ really  _ get to know each other and see if the Magnus Institute is right for me’, he would have been pretty damn gobsmacked too. (In his defense, Danny was the one who offered to turn the damn thing on when he heard the game of keep away and the stakes.)

Also if Tim wasn’t currently ducking and weaving between the smaller spaces of enormous mechanical devices meant to bend, shift and weld things larger than himself into shape, praying to whatever god might hear that they don’t turn back on yet. That was a pretty big factor. 

As Fairchild threw his head back and cackled behind him, Tim spotted Danny out of the corner of his eye, driving his little vehicle onto a still conveyor belt directly underneath where Tim was still frantically flying. And with how close Tim had to be to the five-meter tall monstrosity chasing him- that put his brother within arm’s reach of

Tim yelled down to Danny, helplessly trying to steady himself, “What the hell are you doing?!” Sure, the researcher with Danny could float away, and if Tim could only find someone else, anyone else, he could scrounge up and mirror some other useful skill- but Danny didn’t have any excess or lack of a soul. He didn’t have magic. All he had were purely human capabilities and fast-talking with his surprise passenger, possibly making some plan or possibly flirting. Tim sure as fuck wouldn’t know. He couldn’t hear them.

_ “ _ Just trust me!” Danny called back, leaning forward as the woman behind him turned fully around, facing the creature. Her eyes, polished copper peering out of a copper brown face, scanned the giant robot, sharpened gaze roving from flailing arms to heaving torso to slack, broken jaw, dark coils of hair falling from her neat puff of a ponytail. 

Danny slowly lessened the speed, just enough to put him closer and closer to the thundering footsteps of the beast and Tim’s heart was going to give out. Fuck, fuck, fuck fuck fuck he had to figure out how to dive down and-

Danny suddenly sped up, driving straight off the conveyor belt and pulling a ninety-degree turn as he hit the ground, tires squealing at the impact. The woman had let go of Danny and, with the momentum, she had been going at, continued to fly at the same height toward Hope. She held an arm out and feinted to the side, right flank just barely brushing past sharp metal as she pulled a single metal wire from the mess of black cords in its middle.

At first, there wasn’t a noticeable difference, and Tim winced as the ring of a crescent-shaped iron doohickey rained down from the guide-rails to his right. He moved to the side as behind him, the machine grew more and more uncoordinated with each thundering stomp.

Hope moved forward a few steps more, gave a mighty shudder, and fell forward on the conveyor in an unmoving husk of a machine. Danny, parking his little vehicle, yelled triumphantly, “Timber!”

“Timber!” The researcher agreed, with the single wire held up in one fist, a wide grin on her face. Tim, finding that he apparently wasn’t in much danger of death anymore, slowed down to a stop, chest heaving as he tried to catch his breath. The researcher glided towards the direction the brothers were in while Danny made his way over to Tim, and Tim wondered how descending to the ground worked again. 

“Good show!” Simon called, sitting primly on the downed body of Hope, a wide grin on his face. “Good form all around, for your first true flight for your life!”

Tim’s head snapped down to Fairchild and he paused, eyebrows furrowing, “Hey now-”

Simon, laughing like a damn maniac the entire way, scrambled up from the unmoving body of Hope and danced away from Tim’s area of impressionability, severing the connection. Tim had a single moment to think,  _ Oh, I’m gonna fall,  _ before he immediately began to fall. 

He didn’t have time to shriek before the researcher glided in, catching him smoothly with an assured grip. Tim’s limbs were awkwardly spilling out of her hold and his hair was mussed in a way that was totally uncool looking, sticking up at odd angles, but he still grinned as though he were the most charming man on earth. He was not, and he especially wasn’t in this moment- but he was sure as fuck relieved. “Well hello, Miss Savior,”

She snorted. “Sasha’s fine- none of this ‘savior’ business, alright?” Tim nodded in assent. “And I’m setting you down now, so you can explain what exactly I was saving you from, Mister...”

“Stoker,” Tim said, winking as he was set down on the cold, harsh ground. Once upon a time, he’d thought he would have loved to be able to fly. Not anymore! Guess he’d better thank the old man for beating that childhood pipe dream out of his soulless guts. Now he was so grateful to be on the ground that he could have kissed the damn thing, zero to Frenching in 3.5, tongue and all. “Tim Stoker- courier extraordinaire and devilishly handsome Magnus minion, at your service,”

“Pleasure to meet you,” Sasha said, smiling as she looked Tim over. “You alright then? Nothing’s broken or bruised, or…”

“Nope, everything’s in order!” He drew himself up to his full height and looked down at Sasha, who was much shorter than he had assumed from the air. “Anyway, so you need to meet-”

Before he could even say anything, the door to the corner office opened, and out came a cheerful, songbird high voice. “Danny Stoker~~”

Danny, who had been checking on Hope, blanched. “Oh, shit.”

Out from the very same corner office that Sasha had walked in from came Nikola Orsinov, ‘ringleader’ of Ringster Robotics and lead technician. She was wearing ringleader attire despite owning factories specializing in automations, cropped red hair hidden under a ridiculous top hat and an ornate cane held under one of her prosthetic arms. Nikola’s face might well have been the only human bit on her- there were rumors that more than just her arms were prosthetic, and there were even more rumors about where she’d gotten them, and even more rumors than that about some of those prosthetics being less metal and more meat than she let on. Not even human meat. Just meat. 

“Now, I might be mistaken,” Nikola said sweetly, red-painted lips stretching in a wide smile, “but I do believe I only gave you enough leave to do a little debugging with Hope. Would you just look at the mess you’ve made of things!” She whistled, eyes wide as she surveyed the damaged equipment. “I might just need to skin you alive to pay for all this- unless one of your friends there wants to volunteer?”

“Ah,” Simon spoke up, sheepishly waving a hand in the air and also why the fuck was he crushed underneath the robot? Tim squinted for a moment, trying to see when the hell that happened. “That all might be my fault, I’m afraid!”

Nikola’s head snapped to where Simon was half sticking out from the machine, eyebrows rising in a look of genuine surprise. “Well, I’ll be! Simon Fairchild, in the flesh!” 

“Not for long, I fear…” Simon sighed delicately, holding a hand out. “... Unless I could get a hand?”

“Say no more,” Nikola said, striding over and sliding her hand into the old man’s. Simon slowly began to shimmy out, pulling

and then Nikola’s arm- the one made of primarily plastic- popped clean off.

Everyone froze immediately; Tim going stock still with his hand still on Sasha’s shoulder, using her as a makeshift brace after the hours of extended leave from the laws of gravity; Sasha silently levitating backward a few steps, and Danny letting out a barely perceptible sound of alarm. For a few seconds, Nikola stared down at Fairchild, a look of exaggerated annoyance on her features, as Simon’s face morphed into a look of the fakest horror Tim had ever seen.

Then, Simon cracked, a large grin spreading across his face as he laughed. Nikola cracked too, giggling as though this were all a private little joke, even as the bloody nerves in her the circular port on her shoulder twitched nauseatingly in the open air. “Ah, that’s my sweet little Nikki!”

“I told you not to  _ call  _ me that,” Nikola rolled her eyes so far that it actually looked unnatural. She snatched her arm back and carelessly shoved it back into her shoulder, not flinching in the slightest as the nerves reconnected.  _ “You’ve  _ lost your arm privileges,” Simon hadn’t needed it after all, since he finished shimmying out from under the automaton, not even seeming the slightest bit bruised or winded from the immense metal weight. What the hell?

“Sorry, sorry- it just slipped my mind,” Simon said placatingly, brushing himself off as he gave a wide smile. “I’m just delighted to see that my darling little niece still has it in her to play toy soldier!” 

Wait. Tim gawped, looking between the little old man and the woman towering over him.  _ This  _ was his niece the entire time? But it seemed to be true, as Nikola sighed dramatically, swiping her hat off from her head so she could run her fingers through her hair a little better. “And this? This, Simon, is why I disowned myself, right here. It’s hard being mysterious when you have some old biddy spilling your life’s story to any random passerby! And not even the really fun bits!”

“Oh, we could go over the fun bits, but,” Simon paused for just a hair’s breadth of a moment, looking to one corner of the room. Tim followed his gaze, and in the corner, there was a camera. “I would rather we keep those sorts of things outside, hm? You know how fidgety people get around the M-word, dearie,”

“Suppose so-” Nikola sighed again before her chipper smile was back on her face at full force. Clapping her hands excitedly, she turned to the three still in the spacious room with them, “Not everyone can handle the emotional stress of a good Macbeth, Macbeth, Macbeth, right?”

“... Right,” Sasha said while Tim puzzled over that. This wasn’t a theatre, so it wasn’t if the curse- supposed curse, he quickly corrected himself- could affect them there… Sasha was smiling then, clasping her hands together as she inclined her head to Nikola. “Apologies for sticking around a bit longer- it seemed as though my help was needed, here,”

“And it’s certainly appreciated!” Nikola’s eyes fell on the wire in Sasha’s hand and her smile grew a little more genuine. “Now, if you’ll hand that back to Mister Stoker- I think I need to have a word with him…”

Danny was about to say something, but Tim had already started speaking. “You don’t really have to- he wasn’t the one who came up with all this or anything,”

Nikola looked Tim over, head tilting. Then it tilted some more. And then tilted more. It tilted until there was a sickening little  _ crack  _ when her head hung nearly upside down. “And who are you, exactly?”

“Tim- Danny’s brother?” Tim had met Orsinov before, but he guessed he couldn’t blame her for forgetting. She’d been mostly focused on applicants and career fair projects. “Starting that robot really wasn’t his fault- I’m the one who pushed him into it, when Simon asked. Guess I’m just a bit of a people pleaser?” Nikola’s gaze remained steadily on his face, wide smile seeming to be a caricature frown from the freakish angle she held her head.

“Tim,” Danny winced, “you really don’t have to-”

“Don’t worry- I wasn’t going to talk to him about that!” Nikola declared, placing two gloved hands on either side of her face and violently twisting her head on straight with an even louder crunch. “We just need to negotiate higher pay is all!”

“Higher- huh,” Danny said, face pinching into a look of confusion. 

“Higher pay, silly! Both because you showed some incredible problem-solving skills today, taking advantage of all the resources available,” here, Nikola gestured to Sasha, “and because I expect you to pay me back at least a bit for damages! You did well, buuuuuuuuuuuut part of my factory  _ is  _ still destroyed, so take that as you may!”

“Oh, right!” Danny brightened, nodding, “Of- of course- my apologies for letting it get this bad. It won’t happen again!”

“I know it won’t,” Nikola said cheerfully, grasping Danny’s shoulder in a way that could be considered friendly, “because if it does, I’ll kill you myself!”

Tim was more than a little alarmed, especially because Nikola sure as hell didn’t  _ sound  _ like she was joking- but Danny just laughed, nodding to her. “I better not let you down then!”

“As for myself, while I’m rather glad to see that all’s well that ends well,” Simon announced, possibly cutting the moment short for the good of all, “I’ll have to pop over to the Magnus Institute,” 

Tim’s eyes snapped over to the little old man as he announced this, eyes widening. So this meant… “What for?” Tim asked anyway, just to be safe.

“Why, isn’t it obvious my boy?” Simon chuckled, eyes crinkling at the corners, “You’re looking at the newest partner with your institute!” Tim could have kissed the man, but he didn’t. Partially because it was inappropriate and mostly because his legs were still a little shaky from flying for his life from a giant robot.

While Tim was privately celebrating that all of this wasn’t for nothing, Simon had glanced over at Nikola, gaze softening. Nikola let go of Danny and met that gaze, eyes strangely hard. Simon softly called out to her, saying, “We’re having dinner this Sunday, you know- remember, there’s always a place for you.”

“I’ll be busy then, I’m afraid,” Nikola said smilingly. 

Simon sighed, giving a somber little smile, “As you always are. Do try to take a rest.” He started to levitate a little higher, so they were at eye level. “I’ll see you soon, niece.”

“Good day to you too,” Nikola said, cordially cold, “fellow associate.”

It might have felt more somber a scene- felt more like they had all unwittingly intruded upon some facet of the inner lives of these two capricious characters, glimpsed something no one would ever bring up again- if directly after Simon hadn’t floated wordlessly upwards and out of the open window pane, looking less like he was flying and more like someone had taken a picture on a cathode ray tube screen and slowly moved it upward in the most unnatural fashion possible. He didn’t even replace it or anything. He just kept floating up and up until he was just a speck among the blue sky, and then nothing.

Sasha and Tim stared up at the blue sky, similar expressions of mild incredulity written across their faces as Time wondered,  _ is that… it? _

When he looked back, about to say something further, he realized that Nikola had already absconded with Danny; the door to her office swung closed, and as Tim saw Danny’s back retreat behind it, he couldn’t help the irrational stab of fear that rolled through him.

But. It wasn’t- it wasn’t founded on anything concrete. So Tim swallowed down his apprehension and just looked back to Sasha, trying to figure out where to go from here before he realized, “... Shit. He never gave me back my hat.”

That got a startled laugh out of Sasha. “What, Simon Fairchild stole your hat?”

“I mean, it wasn’t Fairchild  _ specifically  _ that stole it? It was this,” Tim gestured vaguely with his free hand, “ _ really  _ rude little hat-taker-gizmo that wouldn’t leave me alone until I took it off. Almost stuck hooks into me and everything- and! It ruined my hair!” He ran his fingers through it, huffing out a breath.

“Do you want to go get it back?” Sasha asked.

“Oh  _ hell  _ no,” Tim said, laughing shakily, “I have had quite  _ enough  _ of Simon Fairchild for a few months, at least,” 

“Hey, fair enough- meaning we should probably avoid the institute for a bit then,” Sasha nudged him, grinning, “Fancy a drink?”

“Oh my, a proposition?” Tim grinned, batting his eyelashes exaggeratedly, “After saving my life too- I may just be coming down with a case of the vapors for you, Miss Sasha,”

“Oh, hush,” Sasha swatted his arm, rolling her eyes. “I’m just using my ‘savior’ credibility to finesse some free food out of you. Shall we?”

“I do believe we shall,” Tim said, taking his hand away and trying to take a step before his knees immediately began to buckle, a surprised ‘um’ falling out of his lips. Sasha caught him for a second time, meaning that he was probably also going to be buying some kind of dessert too. “Whoa okay, gravity,”

“I’m guessing you’re not used to flying?” Sasha said compassionately, “Soulless, right?”

“Yeah- how did you know?” Tim blinked a bit, glancing down at her as he slid his arm through hers, “I don’t act like that much of a prat, do I?”

Sasha shook her head, huffing out an amused breath, “You don’t fit any stereotypes; you just fell right like a stone once Fairchild was away from you. And your technique was pretty sloppy up there, on second thought-?”

“It was my first time! And I was being chased by a robot!” Tim complained disingenuously, “So I mean, it’s not like I had time to acclimate.”

“True- and that was a damn good first attempt,” Sasha ceded, which made Tim maybe a smidge smug. A smidge. “What was all this about anyway? You still haven’t told me,”

“Ah-ah,” Tim said, starting to walk and being very grateful to have the temporary support. His entirely body felt weird and his legs felt like vibrating jelly; kind of like when he was a kid and tried to swing as high up on the swings as he could just to feel the way the air strained against him. “drinks first, whacko job stories later,”


	5. Nottie --[Sasha, m16]

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sasha and Tim accidentally get trapped by a weird eyeball monster in the office of the missing head records' keeper, and the automaton Not!Sasha is introduced.
> 
> Set during Month 16. TWs for this chapter include: mild gore, paranoia, blood, disembodied nerves/body parts

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey there! So I'm sad about s5, and decided to post this little tumblr prompt fill because I miss both Sasha and Tim so very very dearly, and also because I'm currently writing a sappy jonmartin counterpart to be posted later on tonight! 
> 
> This chapter also begins the point where I've thrown up my hands and decided that it's fine if individual chapters are asynchronous. Basically, if you wanna keep the timeline of everything straight, I'll be posting which months everything is set in in the summaries! This drabble collection spans 29 months, whereas the mainfic will likely be spanning about half a year to a year after that. 
> 
> I hope you enjoy!

“Hey Sash,” Tim muttered, leaning closer to her, “d’ya ever get the feeling that you’re being… watched?”

Sasha’s eyebrows furrowed as she looked first from Tim, then to the camera that he was looking directly at, then back to Tim again. Eyebrow raising, she said, “I haven’t the slightest clue what you mean.”

“I’m being serious,” Tim nudged her, huffing out a breath, “I don’t mean like, camera-watched- I mean like, eyes on the back of your neck so the hairs raise horror-movie kinda watching.”

Sasha hummed, glancing at the notepad she’d been scratching notes in the margins of. Since the beginning of these first round of tests with the NotThem Not!Sasha prototype, Tim had been relieved of his normal messenger duties by Elias, by virtue of being the closest soulless human match they had for Sasha- she guessed Tim wouldn’t be used to having any kinds of eyes on him, even if she was relatively sure it was just the research staff. 

“I mean, sometimes,” Sasha decided on, not wanting to dismiss Tim out of hand. He did seem rather serious. “If I nap, sometimes I wake up and catch Nottie staring- but I’m pretty sure that’s just because she doesn’t grasp what sleep is?”

Tim’s eyebrows furrowed in turn, “Nottie?”

“Not Sasha,” Sasha shrugged, “Seemed rude to just keep calling her Not Me.”

“I mean, I guess, if it were like,” Tim gestured vaguely, “a kid, or a pet or something and not like? A soulless machine,”

Sasha’s lips pursed a bit. “You’re a soulless man.” 

“Well yeah, but that’s different!” Tim tried to gesture to the automaton in question, sitting at a desk in the corner and scratching, almost hesitantly, away at her own notepad. “She’s… it’s…”

The pencil was still held awkwardly within the Not Sasha’s bronze alloy fingers, the velvety pads of the sensors acting as rudimentary ‘fingertips’ curled in a way that wasn’t _quite_ right around it. Other than that, her posture was almost a perfect mimic of Sasha’s own- back slightly hunched as she tried to see through glasses that were definitely due for a new prescription, face turned just the slightest to the left. 

She might have looked human, if not for the fact that the only bit of her that donned the fake tawny-brown skin was her face and a little bit of her neck, topped off with carefully woven silk-soft white curls that covered where her ears would have been if they were cartilage human ears and not two simple holes on either side of her head containing recording devices. The rest of her body was a gangling mass of tied together tubes and ornamental joints etched with flowery engravings, giving her the look of a ball-jointed doll. She’d been made of bronze aluminum, so yellow that she looked to be made of a bundle of gold pipe cleaners in a shape close enough to human, with a solid steel and bronze-alloy abdomen that hid her glass heart under her shirt. 

(Nikola had told Sasha that she wanted to see Nottie dolled up fully with skin; but Sasha privately kind of hoped that wouldn’t pass, because, besides the lack of skin-like gloves that would hopefully allow her to feel things properly and temper grip strength that were still in development, she thought her prototype looked perfectly lovely as was. And that wasn’t just because she’d done the rough sketch of what her soulless doppelganger was to look like either.)

Nottie paused in her writing, glass eyes peeking up at Sasha and Tim. The unblinking yellow irises met Sasha’s own copper eyes as the automaton raised her head and her spindly free hand, giving a slightly jerky little wave. Sasha hoped that was just because the thing wasn’t entirely used to the motion yet- while she knew intuitively that the alloy she’d chosen was rather resistant to eroding, she didn’t know if the gears in her knuckles had gotten situated _quite right,_ and her perfectionist streak welled up inside of her. Sasha waved back, smiling.

“… Besides,” Sasha decisively said, teasingly nudging Tim with her foot, “weren’t _you_ the one who insisted we name the family roomba Stabby McStaberson?”

“That was different too!” Tim said, looking utterly affronted, a hand rising to dramatically clutch at his chest, “Stabby McStaberson is a cherished member of the household! He pulls his weight!”

“Well, just think of her as a roomba, newly minted,” Sasha nodded, smiling a bit. "She's pulling her weight around here!"

“Roombas don’t have the faces of your loved ones, Sasha.” 

“She’s just a roomba with extra bits!”

Tim’s frown deepened. “… Ringster Robotics doesn’t just make roombas.”

That caught Sasha a bit off guard. She blinked at Tim, mentally turning over the uneasy tinge in his voice. It didn’t really… add up. “… I mean, their focus is more on the AI and human-like machine portion of things, yeah. They’re more, uncanny valley, rather than cutesy…”

“It’s not that- it’s just…” Tim glanced over at Nottie, who was attempting to mimic Sasha’s baffled expression, with only minimal success- she seemed confused, but not nearly in the same way Sasha did. He leaned in to whisper conspiratorily, “I just don’t trust clown mascots.”

A slightly incredulous laugh ripped out of Sasha. “Thought you said you weren’t afraid of clowns?”

“I’m not! It’s just- listen, Nikola, right?” Tim gestured, voice punctuated with jabs at the air, as if it personally affronted him, “She has this whole thing with clowns even though she doesn’t partner with or make robots for any circuses? At least, she stopped after her father- you know, and she still keeps up the cheerful carnie act?”

“I mean, she is pretty rich,” Sasha said, not at all following what was going on here. Tim was normally pretty rational, so this… “Rich people can be pretty eccentric.”

“Yeah- yeah but with her, I just.” He slowly let out a breath. “I don’t. I don’t trust it. Never really have.”

Okay. So this was definitely getting into some weird stuff. Sasha was totally ready to drop the subject, but something was nagging at her. “… Danny's been working there for a year now, though.” 

Tim glanced again over his shoulder again, as if checking something, before nodding. “Yeah- he’s. You know, he bragged all about being the first soul hired on at the Orsinov plant…” And then it clicked into place.

It wasn’t that there were any restrictions on people based on how much soul they had, and people with a generally normal amount of soul could get work easily- it was just that at Ringster Robotics specifically, Nikola had created a bit of a taboo. The Orsinov plant, the “circus’s center ring”, was only for soulless workers working on equally soulless bots, dating back from when she’d begun work on the NotThem protocol’s first lines of code twenty years before.

Some said it was because she was hiding something, or that there was a secret project where having a soulful use their magic would ruin everything. 

Some said she just had a vendetta against anyone with a soul.

(That struck Sasha as odd, though. Nikola had been quite cordial with her for the duration of Ringster and Magnus's partnership, after all...)

“… Do you wanna head to the records’ office really quick?” Sasha suddenly said, setting down her pen. 

Tim blinked at her owlishly. “For what? ‘s not like anyone is down there-”

“Exactly. It’d do us some good to get out of the spotlight, yeah?” Sasha said, standing. She stretched her arms up, feeling her back pop with a satisfying motion. She really did need the break… her poor back felt more like a collection of faulty piping than a body part. “It’s about time I take a break.”

“Er- yeah, that’d be good. That’d be… really good, actually.” Tim said, standing as well. Then, he paused. “… Can we leave Not Sasha.” 

“Way ahead of you,” Sasha said, and after gently asking Nottie to please stay up with the rest of the researchers for a moment, they made their way down to the record’s office.

A month ago, it would have at least had one occupant, amid the filing cabinets and cameras that didn’t quite work the way they were supposed to. But Jonathan Sims ran out the institute a month ago, deathly pale, hand around the charm of a necklace glittering gently at the hollow of his throat as if to ground himself, and claiming a family emergency. He hadn’t been back since.

She really hoped that whatever emergency it was, it wasn’t too bad. Bastard hadn’t left a number or address or any way to contact him.

But that all just meant that now, they had the records’ office to themselves, since Elias was too cheap a bastard to install a temp worker.

Tim sat himself on top of Jon’s empty desk, suspiciously clear of the usual clutter that a disaster of a man such as Jon tended to accumulate, swinging his legs a little. He was pointedly studying the nails on his left hand- one was chipped from a little transport mission gone awry a few days ago, but otherwise, they were in perfect order. Sasha crossed her arms over her chest. “Alright. Let’s talk.”

“About what?” Tim asked.

“This whole… theory? You have about Nikola.” Sasha said gently. “Is it… do you think there’s anything-”

“It’s not a conspiracy theory or anything!” Tim said defensively, retracting his hand a bit. “… It’s not like I’m even saying she’s _bad_ or anything, it’s just- she’s _really shady_ okay.”

“She’s a capitalist,” Sasha deadpanned.

“We don’t know that for sure!” Nikola Orsinov was in control of an entire robotics manufacturing company, so Sasha could say with a good measure of confidence that she did know for sure. “She just- I get a weird feeling from her. And her… that plant. It’s not the other manufacturing plants, it’s just- it’s the Orsinov plant.”

“Just a feeling? Why?” Sasha asked.

“… She said Danny had nice skin.”

Sasha paused, just trying to take that in for a moment. It seemed… disjointed, somehow. “… she said Danny had nice skin.”

“Yes!” Tim’s head snapped up, fingers twitching agitatedly, “Apparently she’s- she keeps saying it? To Danny? Even though he’s worked there for all these months, and- and she has a _really weird_ fascination with skin too? Like, outside of Danny’s,” He bit the inside of his cheek. “I don’t know, it just- it doesn’t sit right with me.”

“Well… has Danny brought it up with her? If the comments are uncomfortable,” Sasha’s eyebrows knit.

“No- he just, he takes it like some joke,” Tim said, and okay. Okay, how close was it to the semi-regular dread coma again? Because Tim was way more fidgety than he normally was, and that was a sure sign that his limited soul ‘batteries’, so to speak, were running low, leading to that good old fashioned soulless existential despair. Tim never had seemed to get it so hard, though, having at least a sliver of soul somewhere in there… unless this was mixing with some protective brother instincts too…

Sasha carefully considered what words she could say next, “Well, if it is something that’s truly bothering him- if it’s a problem he’s bringing up and trying to brush off- it may just be that Danny needs to have some space and take his time considering his next actions. If he brings it up, you can do that brother thing you do- you know, the taking stock and taking a step back to impart world wisdoms to gently nudge him into making a decision-” she was cut off when something thumped against the closed door. 

Both of them froze, eyes locking on the heavy wooden door across from them. For a long moment, neither of them dared to breathe, waiting for the moment when the metal doorknob would jiggle or the next few knocks would come- but there was nothing but a prolonged silence and a presence beyond the door that for some reason made Sasha's skin crawl. It was a person, of course- it must have been someone just coming down to the records' office for some unidentifiable reason. Maybe it was even Jon, coming back from his month-long vacation without so much as telling a soul. Whatever the case, that person wasn't speaking, and after managing to draw a silent breath into her lungs, Sasha opened her mouth to

_thump_

Something fell into the door again. There was a sickening squelch of something half wet and sticky sliding slowly down the grainy wood. Something sounding like slime slick meat, and wafting gently of the same just from under the door. Tim slowly reached over to open some of the drawers, looking for a weapon, while Sasha took off her tin shoes to use as something makeshift. 

Again, a slow, wet thump- and then the door slowly, ever so slowly, began to creak open under the slick slide of something gelatinous twisting the handle. 

Sasha was expecting a lot of things. An intruder with some bizarre lockpicking contraption that she would have to frantically use her magic to extract any pieces that seemed familiar in an attempt to make it stop working, some poor janitor who definitely didn’t need this much suspicion put on them-

but what she didn’t expect was the pulsating bundle of optic nerves slowly sliding into the room, tangled around the doorknob in oozing tendrils of off-color vomit. A single eye adorned the crown of its foremost appendage, sporting a horizontal pupil that sloped gently as its nerves tangled around each other.

“What the fuck-” Tim gasped just as the creature slithered, each individual nerve undulating independently and thrashing, squirming, slipping and sliding over one another as a unified whole and tried to launch itself at Tim. 

“Get down!” Sasha barked out, swinging the shoe in her right hand to bat the sentient mass of flesh away as she shoved Tim onto the ground.

There was more insistent squirming as the creature reformed- and before Sasha could get a good look, there was the buzzing of nerve impulses seizing and shorting out in unison, and the heavy impact of metal on soft tissue. She glanced over the top of her desk to see the automation, a fist covered in gore and a face covered with an expression of pure surprise. The ribbons of the creature flew off in all directions, viscera covering the area like confetti as the goat’s eye rolled onto the floor somewhere, exploding seconds later in a hail of ocular fluid of liquid iris.

Nottie stared between her own fist and Sasha uncertainly, lips parted softly and gears spinning somewhere in her skull as the plucking apparatus in her throat attempted to gauge which guitar string vocal cords to pluck. “I… I panicked.” Not!Sasha said, voice coming out in the songbird tones of Nikola’s. 

“Nottie!” Sasha said, equal parts relieved and a little annoyed that the automation hadn’t stayed up. But, this was also a good thing- if she could defy directions, make judgments for herself… “I thought I asked you to stay up?”

“… You did. But you didn’t come back.” Nottie said, head tilting as her voice dipped into Sasha's register. “And I heard there are things in the records’ office.”

Sasha’s smile slowly slid off her face. “… You knew there was… a monster, down here?” Tim tensed on the floor behind her. "Or- or monsters, plural?"

“You didn’t know?” Nottie looked genuinely baffled, blinking at Sasha. It was a little overly much like looking into a mirror. “Miss Hannah says she and John- you know, from research?- saw something ‘proper weird’ down here yesterday. I thought you might have seen it.”

“Oh!” So that’s how she knew- though Sasha certainly would have loved to have learned that too before she accidentally trapped herself and one of her roommates with an eyeball monster. “Well, we’re lucky you came down then! Don't know how we would have gotten out of that... I wasn’t sure what was going on,” She smiled, relieved.

“Yes- I still am not sure what’s going on.” Nottie agreed, voice dipping a little lower than Sasha’s in thought. Sasha stood, surveying the carcass, and winced. All the cleaning that would have to go into this... “I would like to know, though,”

“Same here- and it may be a good idea to get some of the other researchers down here so they can help figure it out,” Sasha suggested.

Nottie nodded, turning around. "I'll be sure to inform the janitors as well."

"Thank you," Sasha said, smiling at her double's back. "It's appreciated."

Nottie glanced for a moment over her shoulder, neck just a little too flexible for the action to seem wholly correct, and studied Sasha's face for a moment. Then, she tentatively smiled back. “... You’re welcome.” And she was gone.

From the floor, Tim rose as well, looking over the scene with a carefully blank look on his face. “… Some kind of roomba, huh.”

“I mean… roombas don’t,” punch something once and then make it explode everywhere in a party canon of free-flowing entrails, “do this, usually, no.”

“Ugh,” Tim muttered, holding his head with a wince, teetering slightly unsteadily. “… I need a lie-down.” Sasha patted his arm sympathetically and offered it up to lean on as they slowly picked their way back across the room and into the hallway. At the very least, this would be... a story, to tell.


	6. Midnight Oil --[Jon, m7]

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Jon tries to compile different versions of the Light Prince myth, Martin knocks on his window seeking solace and a respite from a workplace injury, and both of them have things they don't want to say and no idea what this fragile thing between them is. That won't stop them from being undeniably fond of each other anyway.
> 
> Set during month 7 or 8. TW for this chapter: non-graphic injury, canon-typical worms

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the primary reason why I decided to turn this drabble collection primarily non-chronological- it was all an excuse to write something where these two are just Yearning, So Very Much, because season 5 made me feel an emotion and also as a segue into my favorite bits of this au! 
> 
> Hope you enjoy!
> 
> A big thank you to the wonderful [@shoebashinu](https://twitter.com/shoebashinu) , who I commissioned the illustration now included in this chapter!! Their art is amazing and their aus are absolutely riveting.

The flickering flames on their wicks seared into Jon’s eyes in the relative quiet of the night, burning the midnight oil into his senses ever so keenly as he leaned back in his chair, eyes brushing over the mass of papers and books on his desk. Back his brain ever so slightly buzzing from the slowly receding bits of focus, he pressed a hand over his aching eyes, sighing. Leave it to Michael Shelley to get himself so worked up that even he would abandon his own projects and run around searching for Gertrude Robinson once again without even taking the time to fill out the proper paperwork.

It wasn’t that Jon was averse to picking up the slack here and there, of course; it was his job, filling in for his unpredictable predecessor as she took increasingly longer and longer absences without telling anyone. But he would have hoped that Gertrude’s assistants- technically his own now, though they never truly acted like it- would have at least had the courtesy to wrap up their research first. Particularly since it was apparently so very important to them.

Which was why Jon was currently up until god-knew how early in the morning, going over different versions of _The Light Prince,_ of all things, and compiling various regional differences in the tale so that Michael would at least have something to return to. It had been a personal project of Michael’s, to go along with practicing his soulful magic in some art-form or another that Jon had never had the time to fully witness. 

_Artists._ Jon would never understand them.

He had narrowed the tale down to a few core themes- the soulful Light Prince being cursed with eternal happiness, unable to feel any other emotion or come down; the soulless Landbound, or the soulless Seabound, depending on coastal or inland region; ones that drew inspiration from the earlier Scottish form of the story more closely or fused together with the Greek myth of Icarus somewhere down the line- but there was still some more sorting to be done, in regards to the endings… It wasn’t as though he were tired, so with a sigh, Jon resigned himself to more sorting.

Then, there was a knock at the window.

Jon’s heart stopped in his chest- because no matter how innocent the motion… Jon lived on the fourth floor. Holding his breath so as to not make much noise (because what if it could see him? except, the window was already transparent, oh _no_ -), his head slowly shifted to look outside.

Martin waved back at him with a gloved hand, holding onto Jon’s windowsill with the other, a rope tied around the wrist. 

He breathed, “Dammit Martin,” Jon’s bedroom wasn’t particularly big, and it seemed that the distance between where his little desk chair was settled beside the bed and the window at the foot of it was even shorter than normal as he threw open the window. “I thought I told you to stop trying to give me a damn _heart attack,”_

__

“Sorry!” Martin said softly, a flush resting on his cheeks as he reached his ropeless hand up to hook on the bottom of the raised window. He floated up the slightest bit more, shimmying slightly so that he could settle on Jon’s windowsill, sitting with his feet dangling just a few centimeters above Jon’s carpet. “I-I um, I just figured it was so late that I didn’t want to wake you or anyone else, but then as I was walking away you were at your window so-”

“And you thought knocking on a window four stories up wouldn’t wake anyone else up?” Jon asked, exasperated and… he was not going to call this being ‘fond’. He was _not_ fond of this, not one single bit, and he was going to be even _less_ fond when the inevitable noise complaint happened. 

Martin’s cheeks flushed an even more ardent shade of pink as he sputtered, affronted, “W-well! Maybe, yes! I mean- it’s not like I knocked all that loudly. And you’d be really surprised, what sorts of things people ignore.”

Like the rope that Martin had used to tie himself to the tree outside of Jon’s window. Jon glanced out past Martin’s shoulder and frowned as the long, coarse rope disappeared into the darkness beyond, broken only by even blacker branches and the occasional circle of lamplight from some of the fixtures on the building outside. It was better that it was there, rather than not- showed that at least Martin wasn’t reckless enough to go floating around without a way to come back down- but even so, it was a wonder no one had commented on it.

“Right, well,” Jon huffed out a breath, “come in, then- I can’t very well have a man dangling out my window, can I?”

“I mean you _could,”_ Martin said quickly, eyes and unoccupied hand raising as if in surrender. “I ah- I did kind of intrude here and I didn’t- I know you said to come whenever, but, if you need-”

 _“Martin,”_ Jon interrupted, more exasperation and a little wonder at the man’s sheer willingness to flounder, even sixteen meters in the air, “there would be _questions.”_

“That’s true…” Martin said sheepishly, pulling himself into the flat at Jon’s insistence. Jon held a hand out to help him in, finding with some measure of annoyance that the things were far too thick for any of the usual balance to happen. His bare fingers circled around Martin’s bare wrist and Martin gently drifted down, stumbling just the slightest bit on the carpet. All in all, it was a marked improvement from that first disastrous balancing act, all those months ago.

“What exactly brings you in here now, though?” Jon questioned, closing the window. They’d have to untie that rope eventually, but for the moment, it was late enough that it wasn’t like many people were passing by. 

“Nothing much, really- just,” Martin fiddled with the loop of rope, loosening it before slipping it off with fingers rendered clumsy and thick with leather. It struck Jon as odd- he’d seen what sorts of delicate machine work Martin did, and he was always deft with his hands. Particularly when it came to weaving and unweaving. It seemed almost off, to see Martin fumbling with something so small after watching over him for as long as he had. “Just wanted to talk to someone?”

“So you came to me?” Jon pressed, trying to tamp down the bit of himself that felt just the slightest bit pleased to be the one Martin wanted to talk to. Normally people didn’t want to come to talk to Jon. Or be around him, generally. “... You should probably know that if it’s for advice-”

“Oh, Christ, no,” Martin laughed shortly at this, eyes crinkling a bit at the corners, “No, no advice. Nothing- nothing work-related either.”

“Well that doesn’t give me much to work with,” Jon commented, eyebrow rising. 

Martin leaned back against the bed, shaking his head, “I suppose not- but- but well. I just…” Martin’s brief little smile dropped, dimples disappearing as he worried his bottom lip for a moment. Trying to find the right words to say. It was a mildly disconcerting look, seeing his shoulders slump with exhaustion. “I just wanted to hear someone else’s voice.”

There really wasn’t much that Jon could say to that- at least, not without sounding like a chronic asshole, which he was already accused of on a day to day basis. Perhaps rightfully so, but that was neither here nor there. Eventually, Jon let out a breath. “Well, it’s… been a bit, since I’ve seen you outside your shop. I’ll find the kettle,”

“No need,” Martin said, wincing a bit as he sank into Jon’s mattress. It wasn’t as though Jon had any other chairs in the room, but seeing Martin there, with his far too shaggy hair and the rare occurrence of a stubble… made Jon want to grab a razor. That was all. “I ah, ate a bit too much earlier- have a bit of a stomach upset,” 

“I’ll bring some water just in case, then,” Jon said, because if nothing else he could at least be a decent host before likely becoming so engrossed in his work that he forgot to be the voice Martin apparently wanted to hear.

That plan became much harder when, after re-entering the room and seeing Martin with his gloves off, he nearly dropped the glass outright. 

Wrapping around the entirety of Martin’s palms and at least four fingers a hand was thick, white gauze.

“Good lord,” Jon breathed, but even that quiet exclamation had been enough to startle Martin, who jumped nearly a foot in the air when he saw Jon in the doorway. He was half-afraid the soulful man would just start floating again out of shock, which he’d kind of like to avoid. Jon had upstairs neighbors. He crossed the room and set the glass on his desk, taking his hands. “What on earth did you _do_ to yourself?”

“It- it isn’t nearly as bad as all that,” Martin stammered, face going evermore palid as he stared down at where Jon was examining the injuries. Load of rubbish, right there- this was a little more than a minor injury. The bandages said as much, humming underneath Jon’s touch with persistent, fresh memory of

> _crawling, snaking, writhing, under skin and in the meaty spaces between spasming nerve endings, pulled out just as quickly. There was the gentle slurp of something long and undulating willingly swallowed by a mouth other than the one directly overhead, pulling in ragged breaths and a whine every other inhal_

**“Jon!”** Martin barked out, violently pulling away from his touch. Jon was left there, slightly stooped over the side of the bed, hands left bereft in the air as Martin cradled his hands close to his chest. The bandaged appendages shivered in the open air, as if they didn’t quite remember the feeling of crawling rot and of handling something not quite right. “What the genuine hell do you think you’re doing?”

“I- Nothing! Nothing _much-_ I was just seeing if the bandages were done right,” Jon claimed, head snapping up to meet Martin’s wide eyes. Blue eyes stared back, pupils blown oddly wide. “This is worse- _much worse-_ than any of the last workplace injuries you’ve sustained.” Even the one a month ago, when it was less of a workplace injury and more of the oddest accident Jon had ever heard- who ever heard of accidentally stabbing oneself with a bread knife? Only Martin Blackwood, he swore-

Martin’s gaze widened further into open panic, “You- did you really just know that, or did you try to see it?!” 

“That- was an accident,” Jon lied through his teeth.

Martin’s eyebrows furrowed as he scooted away, moving closer to the window, “Liar- we’re _literally balancing_ right now. You have more control right now than you ever did on your own!” _Damn._

“... So maybe I tried to get a small _look-_ but that means nothing! I didn’t see anything! Not really.” Though he could still kind of feel it- the phantom squirming, underneath his own palms, as if he had been penetrated with unidentifiable thrashing _something_ instead of Martin. “I… apologise, for the intrusion, however. I got ahead of myself.” 

That seemed to lower Martin’s hackles a bit, palms drifting towards his lap to smooth out over his jeans. “... Well. If you didn’t see too much, that- then that’s fine. Just- ask next time? Before using your magic to peek at my mistakes.”

“I’ll bear that in mind. But, both as your sponsor and as your- as someone who cares for your wellbeing,” Would it have been too forward of Jon to call this being a friend? It probably would have been too forward. Sure, by this point they had shared more than a few… moments, particularly once Martin’s songbird prototype started its functioning, but they still spent more time at each other’s places of work than they did outside of it. He didn’t want Martin to feel in any way tied to him, or feel obligated to reciprocate. “I’d still like to know what happened tonight.”

Martin bit the inside of his cheek so hard that it was visible as he chewed the thought over. Then, delicately, he said, “I just finished a rather big project with a… an emotionally taxing customer. She was rather happy with the result but needed a final little adjustment, so I ended up using a ryoba that had apparently been languishing near a small… infestation. I hadn’t noticed at the time and cocked up. Managed to get myself with the blade. There’s… nothing left inside, if that makes you feel any better.”

Jon shuddered lightly at the last comment and decided against asking much further, especially at the mention of cutting himself with the specialized saw. There was still far, far more to unpack there, but… he could also see that Martin likely wasn’t going to budge. And when Martin had mentioned the last ‘emotionally taxing’ customer he’d had… “Would I be correct in assuming that you won’t tell me anything more due to client confidentiality?”

Martin nodded. “Yes.” 

“... You’re not going to be making it a habit to be taking on these… emotionally taxing customers, are you?” Jon asked, slowly lowering himself back into his desk chair. 

Martin’s head snapped up, his entire body shivering as though having an allergic reaction shot through his skull. “God no- I don’t have enough in me for more than…” The odd thing here was, as he trailed off, Martin’s movements suddenly stopped. Even the minute rise and fall of his chest stilled, which was more than a little disturbing to witness. The sudden silence dragged out for so long that Jon nearly said something, and then Martin was shaking his head, voice soft. “... only a handful more times. Can’t do too many, in my lifetime.”

“... Okay.” What the fuck else was he supposed to say here? “If any of those times end up being as… sharp as the last two, I’d prefer it if you didn’t deal with any more. Keep the number at zero, please. These additional projects of yours weren’t board approved, from what I’m gathering.”

“Well… you know how it is.” Martin said and, failing to elaborate any further, shifted a little closer, anger and panic giving way to bare-faced exhaustion. “Sorry if I’m not making sense, I just- I’m… really tired. Start getting all kinds of cryptic and disjointed when it’s this early.” 

“Honestly, Martin- when was the last time you slept?” Jon asked, unimpressed.

Martin stared back, eyebrows raising. “When was the last time _you_ slept?”

“...” Dammit. There wasn’t any good way to say that it was different when Martin, who usually went to bed on the schedule of an eighty-year-old granny, messed up his sleep schedule without making Jon look like a massive hypocrite. “Point taken. Though I’m unsure of how good being around me will be for your sleep schedule if you want me to keep talking.”

“Mm… You also don’t have to talk any more on my behalf,” Martin said, lifting the water glass from Jon’s desk and cradling it gingerly between his fingers. There was something a little softer to his body; the slowly relaxing slant of his shoulders down, the soft curl of his lips tilting up, the soft seafoam of his eyes illuminated in the lantern light. “Somehow, speaking with you makes it easy not to want to hear anything else.”

Jon’s eyebrows furrowed. “... The window is still open, in that case,”

Martin’s lips curled up more, impossibly fond in a way the late hour was projecting itself onto Jon’s perceptions, searching for something sweet that Jon would never in this lifetime deserve. “It was a compliment, Jon- I swear,” Jon uttered a little ‘hmph’, turning his attention back to his work and pretending that he still wasn’t hearing the smile in Martin’s voice as he said, “I’m just glad to be close.”

“... That’s good, then,” Jon said, and began to scratch more little notes into the margins of a Lancaster version of the tale he’d spent hours compiling, more poetic in prose and similar in all respects to many other Northern versions.

The room lapsed into silence. It was no longer the submersion into the clinical silence of the academic, devoid of deeper meaning beyond what could be afforded to chronic insomniacs within their natural habits; the silence that suffused through the room was more comforting, the flicker of flames against the pockmarked plaster wall warmer in tone, and if Jon’s cheeks were darkened there was no telling whether it was blood pooling on his cheekbones or the shadows cast by the dim light.

Despite his original insistence on becoming caught in his work, Jon was still hyper-aware of Martin on the bed beside him. Martin shifting a little closer to the edge, gently inching nearer to where Jon’s desk was pressed flush against the wall beside the bed with barely space to squeeze a leg into. Breathing slowing and mingling with the occasional rustle of papers and scratching of ink and paper. 

Jon might have felt uncomfortable, should have felt as though he were being scrutinized- but it didn’t feel as if Martin was really looking at him. Out of the corner of his eye, Jon saw how Martin set his now empty glass aside, head slowly drifting to lean against the headboard. Caught in exhaustion and the strange spell the midnight hour had cast, syrupy sweet, Martin rested. Even with the words in front of his face slowly warping and sliding just outside of Jon’s comprehension, he continued to work.

The idea of shooing Martin back out into the chilly night air never even crossed Jon’s mind.

The first dredges of daylight had begun to slide into the room when Jon finally turned to Martin, quietly asking, “So I suppose you won’t be going home tonight.” 

“...” Martin didn’t reply. His eyelashes were so long that they curved slightly outward, fluttering gingerly against the sleepless-bruised skin under his eyes. 

“I’ll take that as a no.” Jon muttered, unable to deny that, perhaps, in the soupy daze of the dawning morning, he felt just the smallest touch fond.


	7. Light Prince --[Martin, m7]

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Martin recounts a much different version of the Light Prince that his mother told him, Jon is a staunch proponent of both weddings at the end and hating Keats, and Tim comes in to jump to conclusions.
> 
> Set during month 7 or 8, with minor TWs for typical Grimm Brothers fairytale style blood

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Haha what if I rewrote the Light Princess to be both gay and in the style of a Mechanisms concept album... just kidding........... un l e s s... Today's oneshot is brought to you by an inherent love of tragic fairytales and also awkward pre-relationship flirting that they don't realize is flirting! Because what better thing to do than those things, in that order
> 
> I hope you enjoy!

“So, um, just… talk, then?”

“That is what I’m asking, yes,” 

Martin shifted slightly in his seat, biting his bottom lip as he regarded the tape recorder whirring gently on the desk in front of him. It’d be a little easier, he thought, if he didn’t have Jon looking at him intently from the opposite side of the table, hair falling in elegant waves that framed his face in a way that made Martin want to melt into the strangely comfortable chair. Fiddling with his fingers in his lap, Martin wet his lips and asked, “Er- should I, do the voices? Too? Or would that be too much,”

“It doesn’t really matter,” Jon said, and though the tone was impatient, there was a curious gleam in his eye that made it seem just the slightest bit insincere. His fingers twined together underneath his chin as he leaned forward, interested. “Just tell it however you remember it.” 

“Right,” And well, Martin could indulge in this. Even if Jon hadn’t seemed nearly so interested before, and even if he’d spent the better part of breakfast alternatively cursing Michael for making him pick up his research and trying to shoo Martin away from the kitchen. Even if the thing that led to being here, in Jon’s little basement office at the Magnus Institute, was Martin’s offhand remark about the scary part of  _ The Light Prince  _ that Jon apparently had never heard before, getting him a look two parts incredulous and one part as though he were holding back a laugh. Jon was being kind enough to let him stay at his flat while Martin had the exterminator at his shop, after all.

“Erm… so, um, this is Martin Blackwood, mechanist, leaving a record of the version of  _ The Light Prince  _ that my mother used to tell me as a bedtime story- a version which, which um, has apparently not yet been recorded or alluded to elsewhere. So, the story goes…” 

His eyes flickered up to Jon, who nodded, leaning in a little more. So much for not being interested in story anthropologies, Martin thought with a small smile before quickly looking down at the tape recorder. He began.

* * *

“Once upon a time, in a far off kingdom, the King and Queen wished for nothing more than a child. For many years, they prayed and prayed, hoping that one day they would have an heir to rule the land. It took many decades, and it wasn’t until the King was beginning to grow grey that their prayers were answered; the Queen bore a beautiful baby boy, and the joy in the Kingdom was unconfined.

A celebration was held in honor of the newborn Prince, to which all of the kingdom was invited- all except for the Princess Makemnoit, a cruel woman who was the Queen’s sister. On the day of the celebration, people from far and wide came to bid the baby Prince good fortune and fine tidings. It was on that day of blessings that Princess Makemnoit appeared, uninvited, to bestow her own gift on the child. In the grim silence of a court which only now understood the depths of their scorn, she loomed over the white cradle of the infant and laid a curse upon him. 

For all his days, the Prince would have no gravity- the wind could carry him away at a moment’s notice, the already soulful stirring in his chest would grow into an untameable fire, and his body would never again touch the earth.

As the infant grew into a child, it became clear that there were side effects that no one could dream. Even iron shoes, standard practice for pulling the soulful down to earth, could not force the Prince to touch the ground; there were no ropes or belts that could bind him to sit or lie in one place. His body remained in the air and his soul filled the room with chill and mist. 

But the worst effect was yet to come, for as he grew into a young man, it became clear that the Light Prince was wholly incapable of any emotion besides happiness. What seemed on the surface to be a blessing was a terrible blight upon the kingdom, for he could not care for the lives of his people, nor care or take the lessons that were meant to make him King seriously. The Prince could shed no tears, nor speak with authority. No matter the famine or war or calamity, he could not lose his smile.

And when the Prince did not feel happy- when there was no laughter, when his smile was not sincere- the Prince was unable to feel anything at all.

It became evident when, in her grief, after spending years trying to find a cure for the ailment of her son’s lightness, his mother the Queen died of a broken heart. At the funeral, with the whole kingdom mourning, the Light Prince looked upon the still face of his mother and felt nothing. He tried in that moment to- for though the Prince could feel no true love, he could feel something close to it, the happiness love could bestow- but no matter how hard he tried, there was nothing. The Light Prince looked upon the pale face of his mother and laughed long and loud, filling the empty room with joyous sound.

That night, unable to sleep for the happiness the Prince tried to translate into an emotion that was not happiness, he floated into the garden, suspended in the air despite his heavy iron shoes and the rope tying him to his balcony railings. Looking at the vast expanse of the sky, he at first didn’t notice the quiet figure entering the grounds.

This, as it turned out, was a landbound soulless runaway from another Kingdom not yet fallen. The Prince of Thorns acted as refugee from his court, unable to smile for the many worries and dark thoughts that plagued his mind, should he fail to gain the aid of the King. 

It was in that garden where the Light Prince and Thorn Prince met. The Prince of Thorns was at first wary, believing the Light Prince’s smiles and friendliness to be a trap of some kind; the Light Prince, if he could recognize it, didn’t comment on it, treating it as a grand game to play. The Light Prince introduced himself and begged the Prince of Thorns to tell him more about himself, stars alight in his eyes. The Prince of Thorns said nothing but promised to come back the next night, and the Light Prince agreed to meet him. 

The next night, the Prince of Thorns appeared with a dagger in his boot and cautiously told the Light Prince his tale- the rise of a tyrant, the bleeding of his Royal House, and a thousand and one terrible things. Throughout it all, the Light Prince never lost his smile, and with the end of the Thorn Prince’s story, he treated him to applause. The Thorn Prince, angered, demanded to know what the Light Prince found so amusing in his story, and the Light Prince confessed all.

“I believe,” said the Light Prince, the painful, eternal smile etched across his cheeks, “something is truly wrong with me.”

Moved despite himself, the Prince of Thorns asked if there was anything he could do to help the Light Prince. There was nothing that could break the curse, explained the Light Prince, but there may have been a way for him to feel something other than happiness.

Ever since the night of his mother’s funeral, left alone in vigil over a body he could not mourn, the Light Prince had discovered something about himself. If he took off his iron shoes and allowed himself to float up and up, into the night air where the air is thin and the clouds obstructing, he no longer felt happy. His breathing and heartbeat increased, and his hands trembled mightily, and in those moments above, he could almost feel fervent prayers for safety on the tip of his tongue.

“That is fear,” explained the Prince of Thorns, “It’s horrible, but… important.”

“Fear,” repeated the Light Prince, “what a wonderful thing.”

And so the Light Prince explained his plan. The Prince of Thorns, albeit hesitant, agreed- if only because then, as he stayed by the Light Prince’s side, he could ask for his father’s aid. 

For weeks, the Prince of Thorns and the King talked over battle strategy in the day and alliances with which their kingdoms could enjoy, allowing both Kingdoms to live in peace and posterity. By night, the Prince of Thorns would sneak from his quarters and underneath the balcony of the Light Prince, who sang and chatted and tied ever-increasing amounts of rope around himself. 

The Prince of Thorns would hold one end of the rope as the Light Prince took off his iron shoes, and then, the Light Prince would float away. The Light Prince would sing on his way up, recounting old stories and songs until he was so far gone that his voice was a breathless whisper of fear. Then, when the Thorn Prince no longer heard him, he would begin the task of reeling him back down to earth again. The Light Prince would come down to the ground, eyes wet with tears, cheeks ruddy with exhilaration, and voice still trembling sweetly as he thanked the Prince of Thorns a thousand more times. 

Despite himself- despite the movement of war across the horizon, despite the ropes that grew longer by the night, despite the way his arms ached and the Light Prince seemed to grow further and further away- the Prince of Thorns fell in love with the Light Prince; his voice, his unbearable lightness, his fear. Everything that became him. 

And that love was returned as best the Light Prince knew how, stroking the Prince of Thorns’ hair and kissing him sweetly, speaking to him long into the hours of the morning, when his voice would lull him to sleep. The Light Prince could not feel love, but for the Thorn Prince, he came to care for him more than any other. It didn’t matter to the Prince of Thorns if the Light Prince liked him romantically- just as long as he could stay by his side, the Prince of Thorns was happy. The Light Prince did not need to love him to be who the Prince of Thorns adored most of all.

But day by day, week by week, the rope grew longer and the Prince of Thorns grew ever more tired. In the day there was war, and at night there was vigilance- he hardly ever seemed to be able to close his eyes. But then he would think of the Light Prince, how he might feel so empty, and his heart ached so bitterly that his mouth remained closed. 

The night that the war was over- the night that they had won- the Prince of Thorns was the weariest of all. Looking forward to spending the day lazing in bed with his beloved, he held tightly onto the rope and watched the Light Prince float so high into the air that he nearly touched the moon with his height. Head full of sweet, lulling thoughts, and muscles screaming in the agony of months spent in constant motion, the Prince of Thorns could not keep his eyes open. His eyes fell shut, and slowly, the rope slipped away from his fingers. 

There was no one to bring the Light Prince down. 

It was only in the morning, when the Prince of Thorns opened his eyes to find the dawn spill across the fallen rope, that he realized with dawning horror what he had done.

Far from the ground, enveloped by silence and fear so gentle it was painful, the Prince died. 

It was a gentle death, even as the Prince’s body, now free from its curse, fell towards the earth.

Frantic and consumed by grief, the Prince of Thorns rushed through the garden, following the coarse rope that had tied the Light Prince the night before. He followed for a long time, breath caught in the jagged edges of his throat, eyes stinging with the far too cheerful light of day and tears until he came to the very corner of the garden.

In a brush of brambles that even the most seasoned of the Palace staff were afraid to touch, the Light Prince’s body lay, suspended by jagged vines and with the thorns of roses cradling his pale flesh with brands of scarlet blood. The Prince of Thorns, cursing his namesake and his very life, fell to his knees and wept.

Even in the moment of his death, the Light Prince never touched the ground.”

* * *

There was silence for a long moment as Martin, finally breaking somewhat from the moment, peeked up at Jon. Jon looked on, eyebrows furrowed as the shine of the lights on his glasses made his eyes look just the slightest bit wet. Or… wait, was he actually- Jon spoke, voice smooth and seeming as though he wasn’t really all that sad, “Well… I certainly see why you were so insistent on the Light Prince having a scary part now.”

“I mean, a good deal of it is a little scary, if I’m being honest,” Martin laughed a bit, rubbing the back of his neck. “And the ending…”

“That it, then?” Jon asked, the corner of his lips twitching. “No uh… continuation, of any kind?”

“Uh… well,” Martin considered, “There ah, there was this one time, right? Where I asked my mum the same thing and- and she added a bit more to it.” Jon gestured for him to go on. 

“It goes that the Thorn Prince, determined to at least set his beloved on the earth, takes his sword to the brambles and starts cutting. But no matter how many he cuts through, and no matter how many cuts he gets, the thorns grow back behind him- and when he reaches the Light Prince and is finally able to lay his body onto the earth for the first time, he’s bleeding out. He… dies there, like that. Cradling the body of the Light Prince and watching the roses bloom red around them, mourning his mistake and the voice he would never again hear- but happy, because at least now they could be together at the altar of the earth...”

Jon drank in this information before shaking his head, “Well, it’s good that it has a happy ending, I suppose.”

Martin snorted. “Wouldn’t exactly call that a happy one- I think I actually stopped asking mum to tell me that one after that? It just got too depressing.” And well, he had been about six, and his mother was complaining that he had been getting too old for those sorts of things in that… way, of hers, so.

“Glad it had a happy ending,” Jon repeated sternly, causing Martin to shake his head with some fond exasperation. 

“If you say so, Head Record Keeper- Light Prince’s death notwithstanding,”

“Yes, well. I’m actually still rather surprised by that,” Jon said, leaning over to turn the tape recorder off, “since in all the records we have of different versions of  _ The Light Prince,  _ there’s always a happier ending- or, at least, the Light Prince doesn’t die.”

“The Light Prince doesn’t die?” Martin asked, eyebrows furrowing. “Now that just sounds strange. He can’t live like that, can he? Apathy and floatation and all,”

“Well, most of the stories  _ do  _ remedy that,” Jon said, adjusting his glasses a bit, “The curse is usually broken, and there’s no- no mention of the Thorn Prince and the Light Prince having an arrangement where the Light Prince is allowed to float higher.”

“Huh… Really?” Martin was… more than a little surprised. But, well, what was it that his mum had told him a lot growing up? She had wanted to be a novelist for a long time before she had to give up on it to care for him. So she could have been testing that out on Martin, or else try to give him a story that would make him think twice about trying to float away.

“The first bit of the story with the curse and the funeral and Princess Makemnoit are the same all around, but it differs in that by the second half, Princess Makemnoit makes another appearance and dries up all the water in the kingdom, since the Light Prince loves to swim.” Jon said, “The landbound- it’s never really stated what he’s the Prince of- finds out that the way to bring the water back is by blocking the hole in the lake with his body, and he does so under the condition that the Light Prince float above and keep him company. He’s half-drowned by the time the Light Prince is able to safely bear him away, and after a night of tending to him, he wakes up. The Light Prince is so overjoyed he cries, breaking the curse and leaving him on the ground.”

“That’s… really interesting, actually.” Martin blinked, tilting his head. “Is there anything that happens after that?”

“Standard fairytale ending, really. The Light Prince still cares dearly for the Landbound, and they both travel across the country so the Light Prince can learn how to walk. After he masters it, though he doesn’t romantically love the Landbound he adores him, so they’re wed.” Jon waved a hand towards the stacks of papers beside him. “Standard happily ever after and all that.”

“Bit juvenile though, yeah? The whole wedding at the end bit,” Martin smiled a bit, eyes twinkling, “seems almost a little much, after everything?”

“What? No,” Jon said, frowning in a way that could only be construed as ‘loud’, “it’s a happy ending in a fairytale. Of  _ course  _ there’s a wedding, it’s- it’s... Shakespearean.”

“For there to be a wedding?” Martin’s eyebrows rise and, well, he wasn’t personally against weddings at the end, but seeing Jon defend them was… adorable? Adorable and such a lovely, pleasant surprise that it made his heart skip a beat. “Not exactly the first thing I associate with Shakespeare, personally.”

“Well if you’re looking at the tragedies, obviously not,” Jon sniffed, “but you couldn’t even  _ name _ a comedy without a wedding or three.”

“Never really paid attention to his plays,” Martin said, leaning his elbows on the desk in front of him to get comfortable. “Been more about the sonnets, in my view,” 

“I didn’t know you read sonnets,”

“Poetry overall, yeah- believe it or not, I’m ah, not just a wrench monkey,” 

That got a large eye roll out of Jon. “No one ever said you were,”

“To my face!” Martin said, waving a hand a bit, “You know how people are about their mechanist stereotypes- if you’re tinkering or doing work at the old factory there’s not a brain cell that can enjoy books or, or a good Keats,”

“They’re right about that, there is no brain cell that can enjoy Keats,” Jon said flatly.

Martin, slightly caught off guard, frowned deeply at that. “Well,  _ I  _ enjoy Keats! And I’m sure I’ve proven my intelligence more than enough times already,”

“Wait- you like  _ Keats?”  _ The pure disdain in Jon’s voice was palpable, nose scrunching up under his glasses rather much like a cat smelling something it really did not want the scent of. “Good lord, Martin- I know your tastes can be questionable, but…” 

“It’s not-” Martin started to say before being soundly interrupted by the door to the little office busting open.

There stood a taller man with artistically tousled black hair, a wide smile on his face and a shine to his narrow eyes to pair with a raucous voice calling, “Heyyyy-a kinda boss!! Got a package straight from-” He paused, looking Martin and Jon over, and it was only then when Martin became suddenly aware of how close he and Jon were sitting, even with the desk in the way. He could still make out Jon’s face, frozen in mild panic, but was close enough to have a shot at counting the individual eyelashes underneath his glasses. Not quite close enough for anything to touch or breaths to mingle, but close enough that suddenly, Martin realized they were touching fingertip to fingertip. 

“Tim,” Jon said in a clipped voice. “Leave it.”

“Oh... I getcha,” Tim said, his grin widening in a way that reminded Martin of all those books on fae his mum had lining her shelves. “I getcha loud and clear- have fun, pleasure to meet you, esteemed guest,” 

“There’s- there’s nothing,” Jon started to say, jerking back away from Martin as if he’d been branded, the dark skin on his cheeks going a deeper shade of brown.

“No need to explain now! I’ll ask all about it later on, when we’re not in such a professional environment,” Peeking over his shoulder, Martin saw the wink and thumbs up he and Jon were getting, and he immediately wishes his chair would just fall into a sinkhole so he could go with it. Before Jon could protest any more, Tim was gone, leaving both of them alone to wallow at the moment. 

“...” Jon ran a long-suffering hand down his face. “Dammit, Tim.” Martin was so mortified that he slowly began levitating out of his seat, beginning to float again with the sheer agony of the situation. As though he could just float on away from  _ all of that.  _ Jon’s head snapped up to Martin as he began to float out of reach and his hand darted up, catching Martin’s wrist. “Oh no you don’t- not in my  _ office,” _

“Sorry,” Martin said, covering his face so that maybe it didn’t look as though he were blushing as hard as he was. That was difficult, considering the fact that he was the type to blush from his ears down to his toes, but he could  _ try.  _

“No- it’s, my apologies,” Jon coughed, letting Martin float back down in relative safety, “Tim is- a right bastard, and, I mean, he’s not right! In this instance! He’s just a  **bastard** who loves jumping to conclusions, and, I’m sorry if you were- were made uncomfortable, or if the insinuation-”

“No no no no you’re fine!” Martin was quick to assure, a nervous smile flitting across his face. “It’s um, it’s fine. I don’t mind. The insinuation.” Oh. Oh fuck why did he say that. Oh fuck why the fuck did he say that

“Oh! Well, that’s,” Jon said, coughing into his fist as his eyes darted to anything that was not Martin, “That’s good. I-I didn’t mind either.” And that just set off something hammering in Martin’s chest that he quickly tried to squash down. Dammit, he couldn’t just- keep getting his hopes up- “Not that it. Not that there’s anything going on to insinuate,”

“Oh, I mean- I mean obviously-” 

“So really it doesn’t matter if there’s- there’s insinuations, since it’s just. Baseless. Right.” Jon nodded, nearly diving for the papers beside him, “I’m going to finish Shelley’s work, so,”

“Right! Right,” Martin said, digging around his bag for his own books. It gave him an excuse to hide his face, hide the way that didn’t betray the silent wince he still had at Michael Shelley’s name, and the way his face was heating up trying to focus on things that weren’t related to Michael or whatever just happened. Or the fact that, deep down, Martin still wasn’t sure how to tell Jon that Michael wasn’t coming back for his project. But well. Best not to dwell on those such things. 

“Thank God I brought Keats,” Martin muttered. He could feel, rather than see, Jon’s immense eye roll in his direction and he hoped that maybe that was enough to make it a little less awkward, for the time being.


	8. Trophy Talk --[Sasha, m7]

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sasha gets broken out of a thirteen-hour work frenzy and Tim makes a little dinner.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this one was a little shorter, but man I've been itching for a little TimSasha flirting and general cohabitation fun!

Sasha was, in fact, close to committing vehicular manslaughter.

That would be difficult, considering the fact that her car was outside and she was seated at the kitchen table while still in her nightgown, but she figured she had a better shot at committing a felony than translating any of this code into something usable. Spread out on top of the rough wooden surface were blueprints- some of the finalized references for the general shape of the Not!Sasha model, some rough drafts of some of the wiring, specifically in the hands, wrists, and forearms- crumpled papers of half-finished calculations and wonky code, settled alongside thick stacks of paper. 

The paper stacks were the Not!Them protocol, detailing the code basis of how the machines would learn. The protocol meant that, at least, the robot would have a foundation of schemas from which to learn about the world around it- but that also meant it wouldn’t have many nuances on its own. With the design of the automaton, it was almost certain that she would be able to power grip alongside the best of specialized transport. The trouble was that Not!Sasha wasn’t meant to be just a specialized worker- she was meant to be  _ damn near human.  _

Damn near human meant precision grip. Precision grip meant solving the grasping problem.

Sasha rifled through the anatomical diagrams pinned somewhere between her mug of coffee and several lists of materials with chicken scratch in the margins. More than thirty muscles to keep in mind for each hand, over a billion (by her most conservative of estimates) possible combinations… and she just had to somehow account for enough of those possibilities to make sure that Not!Sasha was capable of interacting with even a quarter of what normal humans could interface with. No big deal, except it was the biggest of deals, and also Sasha was close to going stir  _ crazy  _ just looking at numbers-

The front door to the little house swung open with the tiniest of creaks. Sasha, who was still sat at the table with the knot in her silk headwrap slowly loosening, biting at her thumb, startled as the door opened the rest of the way with a harsh  _ bang  _ against the wall.

“Honey, I’m home!” Tim called, grinning as he triumphantly held up several cloth bags of groceries.

Sasha huffed a bit, settling down in her chair. Or rather, a few inches above her chair, but she was  _ not  _ dealing with weighted anklets on top of this. It was genuinely easier to just float mildly ominously and localize the suffering to  _ just  _ all this bleeding code. “Christ Tim, wake up the other half of the neighborhood while you’re at it!” 

Tim’s eyebrows raised as he glanced first at Sasha, then at the window behind Sasha, and then back to Sasha to ask, “Mm, and what time do you think it is?”

“Um, early?” Sasha’s eyebrows furrowed, “You left a few hours ago?” 

Tim sucked in a breath through his teeth and winced in sympathy. “Might wanna fact check that one, there,”

“Oh come on, it couldn’t have been that long-” It had been that long. In fact, glancing out the window, Sasha realized that the sun was no longer blaring into the little back of their little house, and the sky was slowly darkening with hues of deep orange and damp violet clouds pluming across the sky. The sun was setting somewhere beyond the front door as Tim closed it and made his way into the kitchen. “... Ah.”

“Ah’s about right, yeah,” Tim nodded, having absolutely no right to look nearly as amused as he did. “Did you like, move at all? In the last thirteen hours?” Sasha opened her mouth to answer and Tim interrupted, pointing a bread loaf accusingly at her as he started putting things away, “Going to the coffee machine doesn’t count!”

Sasha closed her mouth, lips pursing. “It does so count! It got me out of my seat,”

“You’re always out of your seat,” Tim pointed out.

“That  _ is  _ part of the ‘uncontrollable floating’ deal to my understanding, yeah,” Sasha said, watching Tim stretch out onto his toes to stick some of those shitty frosted cakes in Danny’s snack cabinet. Technically, Sasha was the shortest in the house, but anti-gravity granted her a good four inches on Tim so he was stuck with being the honorary shortest. Sasha would continue to ignore Tim’s insistence that she was cheating; partially because she was sort of biologically incapable of stopping and mostly because it was funny.

Tim sighed melodramatically, rocking back on his heels. “Man Sasha, you’re killing me here! How am I supposed to be segue into my wacky day to day adventures when you’re off changing the modern world on your off days? You’re giving me less and less material to work with here,”

“Oh, trust me, anything you have to say right now is guaranteed to be more interesting than,” Sasha blindly grabbed one of the papers to her right, squinting at it, “the timeframe between initial activation of neural prefrontal cortical to inferotemporal cortical related object recognition and the development of simulated compliant contact.”

Tim paused where he was digging out something from the butcher’s, eyebrows knitting together for a moment as he thought it over before offering, “Prefrontal cortex like, decision-making stuff? Or I mean like, there’s more obviously but like,” He gestured with his free hand.

“Basically, yeah- lots of decision making going into figuring out grip and hand position and all, when you look at something,” Sasha said, privately pleased that Tim had been listening to her last little ramble on the subject. Of course, Tim was always listening in on that kind of thing, but it was still nice to have someone interested in what she did.

“See!” Tim beamed, starting to shrug off his coat now that the groceries were taken care of. “I mean, that’s cool stuff you have going on there! Gonna be able to go full brain surgeon at this rate,”

“Lord no,” Sasha shook her head, laughing, “Are you kidding me? I wouldn’t even know where to begin with all that. It’s all big complex meat sacks with emotions and weird adaptations and neuroses- robots are easier.”

“Never said it had to be a human brain surgeon,” Tim said, starting to bustle around the kitchen. “You’re doing that whole brain code thing! Just get that into brain shape and go to town!”

“Don’t tempt me,” Sasha warned, glancing at her work. She really ought to clean this all up then… “You don’t know what I’d be capable of if I went full mad science,”

“Hey, I say go a little crazy- hear it pays damn well,” Tim joked, “‘sides, how else am I supposed to retire and become your trophy husband?” 

Sasha snorted, “Whoever said you’d be any husband of mine?” 

“Every romance trope and the stars that be,” Tim punctuated this by passing a knife through the knife sharpener, “All the signs are there!”

“Oh? And pray tell, what are those?” Sasha asked, starting to organize her work. Thirteen hours was  _ more  _ than enough work for one day… 

“There’s adrenaline-fueled misadventure that brought us together,” Tim said, beginning to chop a large green onion, “hitting it off, the almost-hook-up, the dashing heroic deeds-”

“I don’t think making sure you’re being sad in bed instead of being sad on the floor counts as anything really ‘heroic’,” Sasha rolled her eyes. 

“-and I got you to move in with us somehow,” Tim shot a look over his shoulder to wiggle his eyebrows. “And you know what they say about roommates…”

“I am  _ seriously  _ questioning that decision now,” Sasha stretched out, feeling her back pop with a severe  _ crack.  _ Man, she really had been there for a while! “Is it really worth saving money if I’m paying with my sanity?”

“It is! In fact, I can save you even more money right now,” Tim said, “I diagnose you with Loud Bones Disease because holy shit that was  _ loud, _ ”

“Thank you for that amazing insight, Doctor Stoker,” Sasha rolled her eyes harder, “At this rate, my loud bones should be retiring early,”

“Don’t tell me you’re looking at becoming a trophy wife too?” Tim teased.

“Maybe I am- don’t need to do bleeding coding if I’m shacked up,” Sasha glanced to the lines of code and her eyes really were burning, now that she had shaken herself out of her zone. 

“But if you’re the trophy wife, and I’m the trophy husband, who’s bringing home the goods?” 

“Our spouses?” 

“As if I’m finding that at my age,” Tim said dramatically, any seriousness severely tempered by the fact that he was still industriously finishing up chopping up vegetables, “I’ve resigned myself! My life of spinsterhood has begun! I’ll be selling my services as governess to the mysterious old socialite on the hill and their possibly possessed charges post-haste; great way to get myself a free haunting-”

“Don’t even say that- if you’re already a spinster, what’s that make me?” Finishing up with setting all her work aside, Sasha made her way past Tim to throw away scrap paper, swatting him on the shoulder as she passed. She paused, one foot floating over the pedal of the trash can and the other resting languidly behind her in the air. “A free haunting? Like being haunted’s five quid to the first spectre you see? What, is the basement not spooky enough-”

“That’s what you’re focusing on?” Tim pouted, looking over at her, “Don’t you want to know why I’m being haunted? My deep dark spinster backstory? I’ve got an entire bit!”

“You can’t just reference the existence of a ghost economy and expect me not to have questions,” 

“Kinda besides the metaphor-”

“Tim, it can’t be a metaphor if you’re the exact type of person who would pay to be haunted.” She settled in beside him, looking over the selection of food. It looked like Tim was in the middle of preparing some good, quick chicken noodle soup. She started reaching for the uncut chicken breasts, “Hey, tell me what I need to do here,”

“Nope! No need for that,” Tim gently nudged her away, bumping his shoulder against hers,  _ “You  _ need to go recover from doing sciencey things,”

“It wasn’t all that much!” Sasha protested, “Just getting everything in order for when the nerves get put in...”

“For thirteen hours,” Tim reminded her. 

Sasha was about to say something, but paused and considered this, “Might’ve been closer to fourteen, now that I think about it- you and Danny were still asleep when I woke up.”

“You know, that doesn’t make it any better,” Tim raised an eyebrow.

“Doesn’t make it much  _ worse _ , either…” Sasha had her turn to pout, but by that point, Tim had already started chopping the last of what he needed to chop. Giving up, she contented herself with grabbing the big pot from under the counter and gliding towards the fridge for something cold and not-coffee. "If you're going to be like that, though, you should at least have the decency to entertain me instead,"

"Oooh Miss James," Tim said salaciously, eyebrows wiggling all the more as his tone dipped into flirty territory, "I have all sorts of _tricks_ I'd be happy to show you,"

"Heel, then," Sasha ordered playfully, huffing out a breath as she grabbed a cocaine-free cola. "Let's not get ahead of ourselves- you didn't even tell me about those wacky adventures you were on about earlier,"

Tim's eyes gleamed mischievously, and that was Sasha's cue to know that she was about to get some good gossip. Pulling both of her legs up so that she floated cross-legged, in a position where she could easily see over Tim's shoulder to see him place the ingredients into the pot with the bone broth he'd saved from Sunday, she gestured for him to go on. "So first thing's first- the Head Record Keeper."

"The new curmudgeony one?" Sasha pressed. "What's he done now? Lose another one of those assistants, has he?"

"I mean one of them had already quit for some family thing, after Shelley- not the thing though," Tim waved Sasha off, "This isn't a 'this guy can't keep assistants for shit' thing, it's an 'I saw him express an entire emotion that wasn't disdain' thing," 

"I didn't realize Sims had an _entire_ emotion- always thought he just went halfsies with them," Sasha joked. "Maybe there's a few extra quarters in there," 

"Trust me, he's a bit more of an emotional guy than you'd think- and this time, he seemed _really_ excited... and he had someone there," Tim grinned.

Sasha tried not to be too disappointed, "I mean, that's what his job ought to be? He's the record keeper now," 

"No no no, you don't get it- he was excited, and talking about literature, and he was sitting there nose to nose with," An aromatic scent wafted from the pot before Tim placed a lid on it and turned around, gripping Sasha's shoulders. "this _guy."_

Sasha's eyebrows raised. "Alright, you have my attention! What's your theory behind his," She lowered her voice, trying to pull her face into the best snobbish look she could manage, laying on a purposefully posh and dry accent, "highly unprofessional behavior?"

Tim laughed at that, treading an arm through one of hers and carrying her over towards the living room so they could properly gossip. "Oh, it's no theory- I think Jonathan Sims has got himself a lover boy. An _unfairly_ cute one to boot,"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You know I went through this entire chapter a second time and then I got to the ghost convo and then I remembered my plans for the mainfic and then I realized that aw shit. Does this entire chapter count as foreshadowing


	9. Cherrypicker and the Magpie --[Sasha, m2]

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sasha is sent to commission the artist Michael Shelley for a glass heart. Sasha finally shows off her magic, and so does Michael; and there's a little surprise at the end.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey! So this was a bit in the making. I think it's about time we speak about Michael in this au

Nikola’s design plans weren’t bad- they were just… unique, and just the slightest bit impractical. 

That was the line of thought that Sasha steadfastly held onto when Nikola introduced the full skin covering and the glass heart, at least. They had goodnaturedly argued over both, with Nikola taking immense glee in the act of saying whatever the hell she wanted while Sasha, subjecting herself to the horrors of collaborative innovation, participated in the tightrope walk. After all, Nikola had been entirely lenient about the Not!Sasha’s design; it could be argued that these two little things (and the Not!Them protocol, of course) were all she wanted.

It wasn’t that Sasha couldn’t see the appeal of the skin; being bred from pig’s skin would make it as close to human skin as they could manage, and if they could find a way to make the electrical signals that tapped against the proposed tubing of the automaton’s “limbs” transfer correctly, they may well have been able to find a way to closely mimic human touch. It was simply that, to generate that skin, and generate so much of it… it’d look downright ghastly.

So, in the end, Sasha had willingly gone along with the glass heart. It was baffling, and the idea of hooking it up to the steam system that helped power the Not!Sasha’s guitar-picking vocal chords wasn’t immediately feasible, but at least it wasn’t over two square meters of skin.

In the end, Sasha had also capitulated to Nikola’s demand that Michael Shelley be the one to make the heart.

Which, thankfully, wasn’t a difficult task. In fact, she’d only needed to take the stairs a few steps at a time from her Research cubicle to find her way to the little workshop the man had secured, sequestered away in the Records Office. 

There’d been some debate going on as to how Michael had gotten the space and for why, since generally the Records Office didn’t have their hands in with many inventors or creatives for anything beyond obtaining records of blueprints or plans or stories. The Magnus Institute Research Department took on the majority of work done by applicants, with a rotation of in-house Couriers and interns moving back and forth between the departments to carry copies of patents and various other odds and ends to the Records’ collection. 

Hannah postulated one night over drinks that perhaps Michael Shelley had reminded Gertrude of a grandson, causing the old woman to take him under her wing. (Sasha had laughed at that, as Gertrude had no children. And even if she had, even with Sasha’s interaction with Gertrude being limited to a single conversation, there was no shaking the feeling that she was a stone cold bitch.)

John said that the workshop had been Eric Delano’s at one point, before a rather dramatic breakdown made him swear off whittling. (Perhaps a little more plausible, but she could have sworn that she had seen Gertrude’s assistant still whittling away, painting the paws of a ball-jointed bear a stunning black. Sasha could have sworn it looked a little too much like a human, but then again, sun bears were rather… human-like.)

Sasha just figured that Michael had something that Gertrude had wanted.

Pausing at the doorway into the little makeshift workshop, Sasha wasn’t immediately sure what that something might be. It didn’t look much like an artists’ workshop. It was a little more akin to a hoarder’s storeroom, complete with box upon box of random items with seemingly no deeper meaning. 

A stack of broken glass in a wooden crate here was settled beside empty wooden frames with the paint chipped off in odd places; there were cardboard boxes full of scraps of paper and flyers from events that had long since ended there; and in the very corner, stacked haphazardly on top of a dress mannequin, were scraps of old clothing, some in tatters, some in perfect condition. 

Further, there was a fine layer of dust over almost everything, as if the room hadn’t been used in a good long while. Which, of course, made sense. Nikola had mentioned something about Shelley just now returning from some sort of travelling art exhibition in Moscow. Last Sasha had heard, he’d left the month before Gertrude announced her official resignation as Head Record Keeper- just barely missed Jonathan Sims’ promotion to the position.

Sasha gingerly stepped inside of the room, sidestepping a somewhat messy box of knitting needles. It was a veritable maze just to get through the stacks of junk, and she wasn’t immediately seeing any work table for Shelley to be at. 

Not wanting to go any further into the mess if she didn’t have to, Sasha called out, “Hello? Is a mister Michael Shelley in?”

There was a sudden clatter as a great deal of little skittering plastic somethings scuttled beyond the horizon of assorted nothings, somewhere along the opposite wall. A long, pale arm, weighed down by spirals of gleaming metal jewelry that laced down from underneath the hem of leather gloves and beyond, shot up from the other side. “Over here! You’ll, ah,” There was mild shuffling, “you’ll have to excuse the mess.”

“Suppose I will,” Sasha said, eyebrows raising as she slowly waded her way through the shop. The closer she wound her way through, the more the workshop reminded her of a magpie’s nest- even if it seemed senseless on the surface, there seemed to be some kind of organizational system in place, with more and more shiny things collected near to where Michael worked.

And there was, contrary to what Sasha had assumed, a workstation hidden inside of the room. It was comparatively much neater than the rest of the room; almost suspiciously so, for the table held no tools for things such as melting or welding.

Michael Shelley was an incredibly tall man, and upon seeing the pounds of metal he wore, Sasha winced in sympathy- iron shoes, steel anklets, and metal weights sewn into his apron and the hems of his clothes; silver woven around his arms and shoulders in spiral patterns; a metal choker that twined around the length of his neck in such a way that there was more brass than skin showing. There was metal tying his hair in a curly blonde ponytail over his shoulder as well, but Sasha couldn’t tell whether the coiling copper ribbons were more of the necessary trappings to keep Michael grounded or if they were merely an aesthetic choice.

Sasha didn’t even want to think about how uncomfortable it must have been to float high when one was so tall, especially in this cramped space. Or how long it must have taken to get all that metal on, just to keep that from happening. 

Michael gingerly pulled his glass-bottle goggles up to rest over his hair, blinking at Sasha somewhat confusedly. He had a soft, mild-mannered sort of voice; the kind of voice that you hear and immediately pin as belonging to a pushover. “To what do I owe the pleasure of meeting you, miss…?”

“James,” Sasha introduced herself, holding her hand out for a shake. Michael took it, leather slightly scratchy against her palm, “My name is Sasha James; I’m the researcher currently working with Ringster Robotics?”

“Oh!” Michael’s eyes flashed with recognition, smiling, “Yes, I believe- I do believe I know what you’re talking about. Miss Robinson mentioned the project. A soulless automaton companion to balance with, or something to that effect…?”

“That about sums it up, yea,” Sasha smiled, a little surprised to hear that news of her little project was already spreading. After all, they were still primarily in the design stages, with some light creation. “We’ll actually be starting on the fabrication phase pretty soon,”

“Well, isn’t that exciting!” Michael said, “And I suppose your being here has something to do with that?”

“Basically,” Sasha smiled wryly, “rather to the point, aren’t we?”

“I hope that isn’t too much trouble,” Michael said, his eyes crinkling at the corners. The amount that he was smiling was starting to read as a little creepy, in the sort of accidental way that socially awkward people could come across, “I’m still settling back in after Russia, you understand.”

Sasha nodded, “Fair, fair- Miss Orsinov wanted me to pass along that she heard from some of her friends over there that your Distortion was the best thing they’d seen in a long while,”

Michael’s cheeks went a little pink as he rubbed the back of his neck, fiddling with the clasp of the braided metal choker loosely wrapped there. “Ah, well, you know. It’s not my best work by far, but…”

“Even then, it sounded impressive!” There weren’t many artists who worked primarily with breakable materials like glass, when durable metals and long-lasting paints were all the rage. It was even rarer for glass to be used as the sole material. “So, when she insisted that our project include a hollow glass heart in the designs...”

“A glass heart, hm?” Michael said, tilting his head as if tasting the words. “It _does_ sound rather romantic,”

“In what way?”

“Well, something made of wire and steel, having a seemingly vulnerable point like that… seems rather idealistic,” Michael said. 

“So you get it.” Sasha said.

Michael nodded, head tilting further as he rested a hand on his chin. “How strong are you hoping the glass to be?”

“Fairly strong- we want the automaton to have some minor combat capabilities, see,” Sasha explained, leaning against a sturdy crate of broom handles, “Doesn’t make sense to make a robot as close to human as possible and make it incapable of defending itself, right? So I was thinking of fused quartz glass.”

“Fused quartz,” Michael said, turning in a little circle and scanning the sea of random odds and ends. “Quartz- I can do that. Now where on earth is that drawer...”

Sasha’s head tilted as she watched Michael beginning to bustle around, disappearing into a makeshift hallway through the materials that Sasha hadn’t even noticed before. With a room full of junk as was, Sasha couldn’t imagine that it would take no less than a day to even find the materials Michael had apparently stashed- and Nikola had wanted confirmation that the glass was being sculpted by that evening.

“Say, Michael,” Sasha said, looking into the entrance of the little passageway, “how attached would you say you are to everything here?”

Michael glanced back at her somewhat warily, a little frown tugging at the corners of his mouth. “... Yes. These are, primarily, what I use for my art, so- so yes, I would say I’m rather attached. I certainly wouldn’t clean any of this out any time soon,”

“I’m not suggesting that you do- don’t worry,” Sasha held her hands up placatingly as she followed after the artist, holding out a hand. “I just want to try something, if you don’t mind,”

Michael’s eyebrows raised as he tilted his head. “Barehanded, or will the gloves be fine?”

“Barehanded, if you please,” Michael didn’t put up a fuss and took off a glove, settling his hand palm down in hers. The fingers were long and a little knobbly, covered in flat metal rings, but Sasha could still see what she needed to.

Just on the surface of Michael’s hands were all kinds of marks, connecting him to, true to his word, every single box in the room. Sasha eyed the bouquet of colors and abstract shapes, looking for a specific mark. The mark for quartz was shimmering just near the juncture of Michael’s thumb, shiny with the want of using it. Tapping it, Sasha felt the pull of a box just behind Michael’s head.

“Look just behind you, third box from the right side of the tupperware with all the feather boas.” Sasha instructed, glancing at the box in question. To her, it had a distinctly silvery glow; to Michael and his somewhat bewildered gaze, it was probably just a box. 

“Alright,” Michael said, reaching up for the box. He looked inside, and just as Sasha had thought, the thing was overflowing with clear crystals. A wide grin spread over his face. “Oh! Well isn’t that just clever!”

Sasha smiled. “Thank you, thank you- it’s just lucky you were looking for an object and not a person, is all,” After all, usually, objects stayed in the same state as the person they were connected to remembered. People were much less easy to pin down- if Sasha were to track a person, they’d have to be the same person someone remembered. 

“Well, now I’m almost jealous,” Michael said lightly as they both gravitated back out towards his work table. “Having you with us could really save some trouble…”

“Well, I’ll admit- I was considering transferring over, after I finish the not!Sasha project,” But then there was a small change in management. Sasha didn’t know much about the new Head Record Keeper, but he seemed like a bit of an ass. It was honestly a miracle that he was keeping Michael’s workshop. 

“Well, I could always put a good word in,” Michael said, dropping the box on his table with a solid _thunk._ He paused, “... Not Sasha?”

“The automaton is supposed to be based on me,” Sasha explained, smiling a bit, “I’ll be the first test run, to see if it can fulfill the role as my soulmate,” Not that that was hard, of course. When you weren’t particularly strongly soulful or soulless, it was actually quite easy to find balancing partners. Of course, just because Sasha had met people who were technically her soulmates didn’t mean she particularly cared for them in person. 

“Fascinating,” Michael said, resting a hand on his chin, “and convenient for measurements! Here, make a fist,” 

Sasha did so, giving Michael a questioning look as he fished a cloth ruler from his apron’s front pocket. “Any particular reason why?”

“Well, your heart is about the same size as your fist,” Michael said, wrapping the cloth around her knuckles, “so my thought is that, if this automaton is to be your equal, she’ll need an equally big heart,” With one hand he held the ruler in place while with the other, he balanced a notebook in the juncture of his elbow and used his free hand to uncap a pen. 

“Makes sense,” Sasha said as Michael scribbled down the measurements. The man was ambidextrous, which was far more enviable to Sasha than the amount of soul that he had. Being able to use both hands at once was _massively_ useful. Lucky lanky bastard.

Michael let the cloth ruler go and took his tools with him to the table, seemingly forgetting for a moment that he wasn’t alone in his workshop. This was fine by Sasha, since that just meant she could spy for a moment to see how Michael would be working with that quartz with seemingly no tools. 

She expected him to start counting out crystals or pulling something out to cut them. Instead, he set the notebook to the side and gracelessly stuck his gloveless hand into the box, feeling the rocks. 

The solid gems began to melt underneath Michael’s hand.

At first she thought that perhaps it was some kind of temperature based magic he had, but the longer Sasha watched, the more that seemed incorrect. There was no hiss of steam or warping of the air from heat; the only thing that happened were the quartz melting into a shiny clear fluid that reminded her of nail polish. Then, the box itself began to melt a bit at the edges, which Michael stopped by holding his other hand to it. The liquid cardboard droplets rolled in reverse, falling into place and becoming solid once again.

“Well, isn’t that interesting,” Sasha said, fascinated. 

“I’ll need to apply heat to rearrange it into the actual chemical structure it needs to be in,” Michael said, seeming to preen with the praise, “but it shouldn’t take too long. Come back in two days time and it’ll be done.”

“Of course- and as for the payment,” Sasha started, but Michael held up his hand. It was the hand that was still wet with liquid, room temperature quartz, slowly rolling down his wrist like paint. 

“I’ve already billed the Research Department- they’ll be handling the glass heart payment, while Ringster is paying for something else or other,” Michael said, and it was the first that Sasha had heard of the research department being billed. But, well, she supposed Michael was a bit of a different case, since the Research department hadn’t ultimately partnered with him.

“Right- then I best go on and let Nikola know,”

“I hope you have a safe trip then, Miss James!”

Of course, the trip was somewhat lengthened when Sasha was stopped just outside of the Institute by a vaguely familiar, grinning face. It didn't take long for her to remember Danny Stoker- likely on lunch break, with an oil smear on one cheek, bright red suspenders and baggy, clownish work pants that held all the tools an engineer at the Orsinov plant would need. He'd made quite a first impression, back when he and his brother had pulled her into that chase- and his brother had made even more of an impression at dinner. 

"Hey there!" Danny said, and his smile was blinding, "So I don't know if you remember me..."

Sasha laughed, "As if I would forget? Come on now, Daniel; we fought a robot together."

"Oh, don't get my hopes up so much, Miss Sasha," Danny said, "I fall in love easy, y'know- and fallin' for a girl like you is even easier,"

Sasha rolled her eyes goodnaturedly, "I can make it harder for you if you like,"

"Maybe another time- for now, I've got courier duty," Danny handed a sealed envelope to her, smiling a winning smile. "An invitation from us Stokers to a Miss James..."


	10. Head in the Clouds --[Martin, m2]

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Martin finds award-winning artist Michael Shelley hanging drunkenly off the branches of a tree. How did Michael get into the tree? No one knows! Least of all Michael.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There's something so freeing to write about a good Martin and Michael interaction, and I can't wait to write more of them bonding tbh vhjbkfvl
> 
> I hope you enjoy!

Martin had thought that it was going to be a normal night. He’d gone out to the scrapyard and managed to find a good amount that was in really nice condition for a cheaper price than if he went to any suppliers, and he had gotten his stove working at some point, so he could actually make himself something! Nothing too elaborate, since he wanted to actually sleep at some point and the sun was setting, but  _ something. _

And that was the moment he noticed an entire person stuck in a maple tree.

Now, Martin wasn’t exactly running on a healthy amount of sleep at the moment. This was something he was working on getting back in order, between the stress of trying not to let on that he had never actually been formally trained in robotics; renovating the shop with only the basics of carpentry down from that one apprenticeship that fell through; and Jon’s check-ins on the progress of the clockwork nightingale. 

(And Jon asking why it was taking this long to build, for a beta version, and Jon trying to avoid touching him whenever possible, and Jon coming in that time with gloves and never having his hands bare around Martin after that-) 

Martin was just about getting back on a healthy sleep schedule, now that renovations of the shop were done. He’d even gotten some consistent sleep the nights before. But, looking up at the slowly reblooming tree, he had to stop and rub his eyes to make sure that he was seeing correctly.

He just had to make sure, because he could swear that was Michael Shelley stuck in a tree.

As in, five-time award-winning artist Michael Shelley, who was touring Moscow not too long ago and even had one of his pieces bought up by the Prime Minister. As in the soulful artist all the papers were talking about, who used his magic to change the states of matter of the material he worked with before molding them into shape. (As in the artist who rejected a teenage Martin’s submission for a poetry contest something like fifteen years ago, which Martin only remembered because he had received a very apologetic letter about the whole thing.)

That Michael Shelley was currently bent nearly in half over a tree branch, draped like a dish towel drying on an oven door. Twigs and the occasional leaf were caught in knots of yellow hair that hung limply down, hiding the man’s face but not muffling tiny, audible sniffles.

Martin, against all conventional wisdom that dictated that it was probably not a good idea to talk to strange drunk men hanging about in trees, called up to Michael, “Er, you- you alright there mate?”

Michael Shelley didn’t respond for a long moment with anything beyond a louder sniffle before slurring out, “Yeeees…”

“It’s just- you seem a little,” Martin tried to figure out how to phrase this delicately, “You don’t seem okay?”

“...” Michael’s head turned in the direction of Martin’s voice, not really revealing anything since his hair was still hanging in ninety percent of his face, “... No…”

“Okay,” It really wasn’t okay, nor was it ambiguous, but Michael certainly seemed to be very drunk. And very stuck in a tree. And missing his shoes, socked feet levitating up a bit and

Oh. Oh that would be a definite problem. 

“Hey, Mister Shelley? I’m gonna get you down,” Martin said, anxiety gnawing at the pit of his stomach. If this were any other kind of person, soul or no soul or even extra soul so long as it wasn’t too big, being stuck in a tree wouldn’t have been that big a deal. The thing was, Michael was full of a little too much soul, and a rather excess amount. Meaning that, depending on how little metal he still had on, he could just… float away. 

“Why?” Michael asked, trying to shake his hair out of his face. 

“Well,” Martin said, leaving his little cart of scrap metal off to the side as he pulled from the coil of rope he kept in his fanny pack, “you’re in a tree. And it looks like you lost your shoes…”

“Didn’t los-lose m’ shoes,” Michael slurred, hanging more limply like some kind of dejected slinky. He did not explain further, just stubbornly stared at the ground.

“Well, er, whatever you use to stay grounded then,” Martin didn’t claim to be any expert in the depths of fashion, soulful or otherwise. He eyed the rope and then eyed the branch, holding a hand out in front of him to try and pin down the exact angle he’d need to throw it in. Satisfied, he pulled a stray metal nut out of his pack and twined the frayed edges through its hole, threading the rope into precise braids around the little metal ingot. Then, he reared back and threw it up.

The silence from the drunken artist was a little disconcerting, so Martin called up, “How’re you holding up?” while testing the rope to make sure it was tied to the branch. 

“Dun’need to hold up… ‘m up now,” Michael’s laugh sounded like a breathy inverted goose. 

“... How did you end up there anyway?” Martin pondered, cutting the other end of the rope with a pocket knife and tying them through the laces of his right boot. Only then did Martin chance taking them off, holding himself steady with the rope. 

As Martin started to float up to Michael’s perch, Michael stayed still and quiet, so much so that it was. Really kind of worrying? He really hoped that Michael was just, normal, quiet drunk and not the kind of drunk that said there might have been a problem. 

He managed to untangle the nut and end of the rope from the branch and tie it to Michael’s wrist with one hand, the other holding onto another branch as he floated before Michael gave a full-body shudder and finally peered up at Martin with one baleful eye. “Floated.”

“I mean… yeah,” Martin said, smiling a bit of a strained smile back at Michael, “Yeah, I um- I sort of figured that. I mean, why were you floating up into random trees?” He paused, tested the rope once more, “And if you could start sliding forward so we can get down…”

Michael grumbled unintelligibly for a moment but did start to slide over and down the branch, uncaringly falling towards the ground with Martin quickly grabbing hold of the hem of his stylish trenchcoat to go down with him. He was  _ definitely  _ wearing more metal than Martin had given him credit for- maybe, ten kilograms’ worth?- but even with that, Michael was still floating some inches above the ground when he stopped.

It was only as Martin got his own ten kilograms of metal back on and returned to walking when Michael, still strung up to the rope that Martin had tied to him, started speaking in words Martin could understand.

“J’st can’t be-  _ believe,”  _ Michael aid hotly, eye wet with tears as he tried to figure out how to pull himself into floating vertically, “that I-I’ve have to take orders, from some skinny little… skinny.” He raised an arm to gesture as if that made any sense.

“Bit of a bad day at the office, then?” Martin said conversationally as he untied the other end of the rope from his shoelaces and instead tied it around his own wrist. He was going to have to cart Michael around somehow, and he hadn’t seen where any extra metal shoes might be, so carrying him like a human balloon it was. “Where do you live?”

“‘e’s not older th’n me,” Michael sulked, giving up on floating vertically, though at least he managed to hang horizontally about a meter and a half off the ground. Saved that hair getting knotted up any further. “He’s- he’s just some  _ guy…  _ ‘Trude dinnit even tell me…” 

“Er,” Martin was about to ask again where Michael was staying, please, when Michael immediately rolled over partially mid-air and fell asleep.

Okay. Martin sighed, placing his hands on the handles of his cart. So, having an impromptu guest over it was.

It was an unremarkable trip home, all in all. Martin pushed his scrap metal and carried Michael like a child with a particularly loudly snoring balloon, and he ended up giving Michael the bed loft since it meant Michael didn’t have to wear a seatbelt to be comfortable.

Martin had meant to clean up a bit and organize his haul before he went to bed, but with the excitement of the evening, he figured having a rest was a good idea. Buckling himself into the plush armchair in the sitting room underneath the bed loft and taking off his metal, he was asleep before the last of his anklets had hit the floor.

He was immediately woken up by the sound of retching and a shaft of morning sunlight to the face, which was an absolutely  _ terrible  _ combination. 

Martin slowly uncurled from where he’d been curled up on his armchair, waist kept pinned by the leather seat belt attached to it. He couldn’t see the source of the retching- probably because it was coming from directly above him, and likely into the little bucket he’d left there with- 

Ah. Michael Shelley. He was still up in the loft, wasn’t he.

Martin unbuckled himself and floated directly to the ceiling, blearily feeling for the hatch door. He didn’t actually have the luxury of being able to keep a traditional bedroom- it would’ve taken too many pulleys and belts (or at least, one of those heavy weighted blankets he couldn’t afford) for Martin to be capable of laying in a traditional bed, and the sheer amount of space needed would have been more time and money to renovate. So, Martin had taken the more economical approach and given himself a bed loft, only about one meter in height but spacious enough to pin a queen size mattress and various blankets to the ceiling. 

Martin opened the latch door and poked his head inside of the narrow, upside-down sleeping space, holding onto the outside of the opening so he didn’t start floating in. On the far wall, pressing his back up against the mattress above and holding the wooden bucket close, Michael floated, looking positively miserable. He cleared his throat and Michael groaned, long and loud.

“That bad, huh,” Martin commented.

“What did I even do last night…” Michael muttered, more to himself than to Martin. Then, he craned his neck down to see Martin’s face peering up at him from the loft floor, “Er- sorry, for the mess… I j-” He paused, biting his lip hard as he swallowed something down, “-I think I have it all out,” 

Martin smiled, relieved, “Well, that’s good! If you want to just slide it over this way I can- I can clean it up,” wouldn’t have been his first time, and really, what was a little vomit? 

“You don’t- um, that is to say, you already,” Michael winced a bit, holding the side of his head for a moment. “... um, I’ll do it. Could- could you put some tea on, though? If it’s not too much trouble?”

“Not at all,” Martin said, taking pity on the artist. It was definitely an embarrassing kind of situation to end up in, after all.

The awkwardness, unfortunately, did not lessen as they slowly went through the motions of waking up. Michael seemed a little hesitant to take up much space around the sitting room and the little sink installed in one corner, which was hard considering the fact that he seemed to do nothing but take up space. Martin fumbled a bit with the pulley that let him get to the ground and get his anklets and chainmail house slippers on, trying not to think too hard about how he was going to have to clean that loft, later on, to get the puke smell out.

By the time the tea was done, Michael had figured out where Martin had placed his jewelry and coat and was in the process of rebraiding all the coils around his arms. Martin was surprised to see that they were actually quite malleable, and Michael was taking quite a lot of time weaving an excessive amount of spirals up his right arm, fingers quick and nervous over the silver metal. 

“Tea’s ready,” Martin said, tapping the rim of the cups. The looseleaf at the bottom formed into compact bunny rabbit shapes, just because actually doing something artistic gave Martin an excuse to gather up his courage before speaking. 

“Thank you,” Michael said politely, finishing a somewhat dizzying pattern around his neck with copper that bled down into the spirals over his collarbone, spread to his shoulders, down his arms. It was enough to buoy himself down to a few meters, and he seemed more than comfortable to sit somewhat stiffly on thin air, legs pressed together and toes pointed downward. Martin handed him the mug before he took his own seat in the armchair. 

His hair didn’t have any more twigs and things stuck to it, at least, but Martin found himself belatedly asking, “Oh, er, did you need a comb?” anyway. 

“Maybe? Maybe, you know,” Michael paused for a moment, holding the mug with both hands and almost enveloping it. He found his voice, quickly enough. “I- I didn’t actually catch your name?”

“Oh!” Martin wanted to smack himself- he’d been so preoccupied last night with more or less forcing a rescue mission on the man that he hadn’t introduced himself. And now Michael was just waking up in a stranger’s house, not even knowing their name… that would be anxiety-inducing in anyone. “It’s- my name is Martin Blackwood. I’m ah, a mechanist, sort of? Roboticist kind of fits more with the current project but, well,” Martin laughed a little self-consciously, “It feels rather… formal, you understand,” 

“Bit of a free spirit, then?” Michael still hadn’t tried the tea. “It’s understandable- my name is Michael Shelley,”

“Oh, I know,” Martin said before wincing at how creepy that must have sounded. “Not- not because of anything weird! I’ve just been reading about you in the papers, recently- you do pretty works and such. Rather impressive.”

“Thank you,” Michael smiled, seeming to relax a bit. His head tilted. “Though, now that you say so, the name Blackwood does seem familiar…” 

Martin’s blood ran cold in his veins, but he kept a cheerful smile as he said, “Oh? I wonder why.” as though he didn’t already know where the name had come from. It’d only been one of the most infamous scandals, and Martin could just hear the reports recounting the incident now:  _ Fyren Blackwood cons long time business partner Raymond Fielding, leading to allegations of _

“I could swear I heard it recently,” Michael said. Martin wondered if whatever radio documentaries about his father had moved from the allegations of arson to the allegations of manslaughter or tax evasion.

Martin suggested smilingly, “Well, maybe someone from the Record’s Office said so? I’m ah, their newest case.”

Michael’s eyes widened as he leaned forward a bit, eyes shining. “You’re being patronized by the Record’s Office? I hadn’t any idea that it was you! My, this is exciting,” 

Martin breathed out a low sigh of relief as Michael was easily redirected. “Yes- I was rather surprised too! I ah, after the Research department rejected the app, I thought I was just about done for- but then the Record Office sends word that  _ they’re  _ reviewing it, and…”

“And then they surprised you, hm?” Michael finally took a sip of his tea, humming in pleasure. “Then again, if you served tea like this then-”

“The tea didn’t have anything to do with it,” Martin found his smile smoothing into something more genuine himself. “I just had an… idea, that’s all,”

“Well see, there’s your problem- ideas are the most dangerous sort,” Michael said, beginning to lounge back a bit. “But, I think- well, would you like to go out for breakfast? It’ll be my treat,”

Martin’s heart stuttered for an entirely different reason. “O-Oh, you really don’t have to-!” 

“I insist,” Michael said, draining his cup within a few seconds, “It’s the least I can do- after all, you did help me out, after Emma put me out to dry last night,” His smile turned somewhat sheepish, free hand fiddling with the free, unmolded end of copper he’d left on his necklace. “Oh, Emma- Emma Harvey, apologies- she’s one of Gertrude’s… um, Jonathan’s assistants.”

Martin blinked, “Jon has  _ assistants?” _

“You didn’t know that?” Michael’s eyebrows raised a bit. “In all technicality, I’m an assistant of his too, due to the terms in which Gertrude signed me on- did Jonathan not tell you about that?”

“I-I was never told about that, no,” Martin said, head spinning a bit, “He didn’t say I had to be an assistant? Just that- that I focus on the creation of the nightingale…”

“Even more reason to have a little something to eat, then,” Michael said thoughtfully, breezing to one of the movable shelves on the wall to deposit his empty mug, “It sounds like we have a bit to talk about- differences in funding and contract, but also, about this nightingale thing of yours…”

“I see, but, well,” Martin set his cup to the side, “why? If you, don’t mind me asking, why do you want to-” not know, god, that was just rude, “-help… me…?”

“Birds of a feather, Mister Blackwood, birds of a feather!” Michael said before spotting the shape at the bottom of the cup. “Oh, cute! Your tea bags are cute,” 

“They’re um, looseleaf- where are we going exactly?” Martin tried to keep up, but now it seemed that Shelley had absentmindedly entered somewhat of his own little world.

“There’s this lovely place I know- brick and mortar, I assure you,” Michael said, as though that didn’t describe a good half of the city, “You said you had a brush? Would you mind terribly if I borrow it? Oh, I’m not being a bothersome guest, am I?” He worried the left bracelet this time.

“No- no, not at all!” Martin said, moving to the storage box he prayed would have the hair care supplies he’d had back when he had long hair. “It’s a bit old, is that fine?”

“More than fine- you’ve really been an immense help,” Michael said, and Martin supposed the only thing he could do was tag along for the ride.

(To be fair, it was one of the best breakfasts he’d had in a while. Michael Shelley, as it turned out, had good taste in more than just aesthetics.)


	11. Study Session --[Sasha, m9]

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sasha wakes up to find Tim passed out at the kitchen table. Danny helps Tim lay down.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> First lil update back in a bit fvhjbkv- but I'm glad to have this up!

Sasha stumbled into the kitchen to find Danny slowly finagling Tim’s sleeping body away from the too-small kitchen table. Tim, for his part, made things easier by virtue of being so unconscious that his younger brother’s arms propping up his shoulders didn't rouse him. It just caused his head to roll forward with a tiny snore.

She leaned against the door frame to watch as Danny struggled to pull Tim into some semblance of a bridal carry, apparently not keen on just slinging his brother over his shoulders like the last twenty or so times Sasha had seen them handle each other while roughhousing. She asked, amused, “What’s all this then?”

"Christ-!" Danny jumped a bit, looking back at her with wide eyes before letting out a breath. “Good morning to you too, Sash,”

“Morning- so what’s Tim doing here at,” She checked her watch, “four in the morning?”

“Seems like some light reading,” Danny rolled his eyes, finally securing Tim in a somewhat comfortable position. Tim barely moved, stirring for a moment before settling right back down into his dead sleep. It was honestly a little impressive; there had to be some sort of skill that goes into being that out of it.

Sasha glided over to the table to have a little peek as Danny carried Tim around the half-counter that separated their shared living room and the kitchen. True to Danny’s words, the table was piled high with manuals and thick instruction booklets, possibly nicked from Danny’s collection and possibly bought brand new, all about the wonders of robotics. Sasha’s eyebrows rose as she glanced over the titles. _“Treatise on The Monopoly Artificially Intelligent Designs Hold on the Market: The Key To Publicizing AI…_ Light reading, hm,”

“He didn’t have to stay up _all_ night for that,” Danny groused as he laid Tim out on the couch. He took the quilt off the back of it and shook it out, checking for dust and mites. “He doesn’t even _like_ maths,”

“There is rather a lot of code in there, I reckon,” Sasha said, moving to the kitchen counter. “Coffee?”

“Doesn’t like coding either,” 

Sasha stifled a little laugh. “I’ll take that as a yes,” 

Behind the counter separating rooms, Danny rested the thick quilt over his older brother, pausing to remember that he still needed a pillow. He started his small search, and Sasha said, “He took quite a lot of notes. It’s pretty admirable work he’s done,”

“Couldn’t have kept it to the daylight hours, though,” Danny said it with a measure of exasperated fondness, despite everything, “That’s just the sort Tim is- always trying to stretch out his day…”

“Has to make you wonder why he’s been so intensive- did he mention wanting to jump career paths?” Sasha put the paper filter in the funnel and turned on the tap, gently setting the kettle underneath. 

“Not that he told me- I thought he would have told you if he was though?” Danny paused, glancing over the counter.

“What? Why would he tell me and not you?” Sasha laughed, “You’re his brother,”

Danny countered, “But you’re his Sasha,”

That gave Sasha pause. Far too long of a pause, really; she hastens to go back to the task of setting the kettle to boil. “You can’t say that kind of thing, come on now- I’m no one’s anything,”

“You don't have to be,” Danny said laughingly. "But I don't think Tim'd mind if you were... well." 

Sasha waited for Danny to continue, but he didn’t. He just walked to one of the hall closets and started looking for a pillow and pillowcase. Sasha checked to see that the water is heating up, albeit _extremely_ slowly. At a loss for what else to do before she'd fully waken up, she meandered once again to the table to tidy up the small pile of books and notes. 

Of the books having to do with engineering and robotics, they seemed to have a tendency toward an intermediate level of understanding- not at all unsurprising, considering that Danny’s area of expertise is building robots. The majority of the reading material, however, had to do with the very basics of neural networks and coding. It’s a little more surprising since AI and coding are more of Sasha’s area of expertise. All of it was interspersed with a few pages of chicken scratch notes and anatomy book recommendations, oftentimes containing only a few lines or phrases. It all had little immediate coherency, but seeming as though…

“Hm,” Sasha hummed, watching as Danny came back with a pillowcase so hideously patterned that she seriously considered looking away, “Hey, Danny, do you remember what we were talking about yesterday?”

Danny winced a bit, “Damn, okay, way to put me on the spot- um,” He thought for a moment. “Something about… that one dancing plague.”

“I think that was last week- I mean the robotics talk,” Sasha said.

Danny lit up. “Oh! Oh yeah, yeah no, I know what you mean. You were talking about compliant contact and programming for those touch-sensitive gloves for your project. Breekon and Hope use something similar, but we didn’t need to program too much into them, since they’re not directly interacting with delicate stuff,” 

“Exactly! Interesting little buggers,” 

“They aren’t exactly ‘little’ but I see what you mean,” 

Sasha shook her head a bit, smiling, “Point is- I think Tim might have been trying to figure that little conversation out,” 

“Ah,” Danny sighed, as though frustrated that he hadn't thought of that earlier, “That explains that, then. Really, I told him the last time- if he wasn’t getting it,” Danny moved toward the couch, gently lifting Tim’s head and slotting the pillow underneath, “I really don’t mind explaining it to him more,”

“Just means more time for you to talk about it,” Sasha chimed in.

Danny twirled around, pointing emphatically at Sasha even as he kept his voice to a whisper, “Exactly! You get it.”

Behind Sasha, the kettle began to give a tiny keen, and she hurried to take it off the fire. Best not to wake Tim up. Sasha asked while holding onto the rubber handle, “So this isn’t the first time?”

“Nope,” Danny said, popping the P as he leans his arms against the kitchen-living-room-divider counter, “he did this when I was getting into my apprenticeship too- would sometimes wake up to him nodding off at the table, ink everywhere, papers crumpled,” He laughed a bit, settling his chin on his crossed arms, “and it was worse then, too- he was still at the publishing house.”

“That’s some dedication,” Sasha said, and she can just about imagine it. A younger Tim, trying to keep diligently still even when he was the type to want to pace, for fear of waking a then-teenage Danny; head dipping every so often, the shadows cast by his eyelashes fluttering against his cheek from the single fluorescent light; fingers stained with ink and graphite dust and hair mussed. It’s an image that she ought to stop imagining because thinking of Tim as the pretty boy he was, so early in the morning, would not bode well on her sanity. Sasha instead focused on the pour of hot water over coffee grounds and the gentle drip of fresh coffee. 

“Yeah- that’s just the kind of person my big brother is,” Danny smiled and, looking back at him over her shoulder, Sasha could see the gentle pride in it. “He’s always dedicated and he’s always taking care of me, even when he doesn’t strictly have to do it.”

Sasha couldn’t help but smile in turn. “… He really does loves you, you know,”

“I know,” Danny said, “Never doubted it for a second. I just wish he would try to think about himself a little more and get some damn sleep- I can’t be carrying him to bed every night!” Danny whined playfully, rubbing his arm melodramatically, “I don’t have the strength,”

“Oh, bullshit!” Sasha said, pouring Danny a cup of coffee, “I’ve _seen_ the things you’re toting around in that plant- he doesn’t weigh anything to you, does he?”

“... No, not really," Danny admitted, "but it’s the _principle._ Big metals are one thing. Metal doesn’t come with four slinky limbs just flopping everywhere,”

“Or hair that he’s gonna blame on you,” Sasha said.

Danny grinned. “Not my fault he keeps getting cheap shit for his hair,”

"Guess there's never been accounting for sense," Sasha huffed out a small laugh, and the morning went on. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> After spending so much time trying to work out the logistics of the fic and how it would work with various tma characters, I've come to the conclusion that the plot I had originally planned for the au was honestly MUCH better suited to being an original work. As such, I'll be spending more time focusing on crafting the manuscripts there! This fic will still update with loosely connected oneshots as I work out kinks in the worldbuilding, but I won't be making The Trouble With Hearts a fanfic series. There will still be a little bit of a plot woven into this fic, though, so stick around!
> 
> Note: I'm marking this as complete, but I'll still add from time to time. It'll just be Super Sporadic

**Author's Note:**

> NOTE: This fic is marked as complete, but I'll still update from time to time!


End file.
